Join us to celebrate a special milestone for our new professors
and hear about their inspiring career journeys.
Our Inaugural Lectures are an ongoing series of public lecturers that celebrate the careers of our latest distinguished professors. Our new professors will be inaugurated with a short lecture that presents an overview of their contribution to their field and highlight its latest developments, as well as their personal journey.
Check out the latest Inaugural Lectures and get your free ticket for the next event.
Professors Dusko Ilic & Claire Wells - 8 February 2023
Professor Dusko Ilic - An Ode to Restlessness
Professor Ilic recounts a life wandering around the world on a range of different topics in translation research on, including but not limited to, the molecular mechanisms of cellular motion and fertility preservation in women undergoing cancer treatment.
Professor Claire Wells - UnPAKing a career in teaching and cancer research
Professor Wells outlines her career studying p-21 activated kinases (PAKs), how they're involved in cancer cell movement and how this research is needed to help create the next generation of anti-cancer drugs.
Professors Pablo Lamata & Miraz Rahman - 1 February 2023
Professor Pablo Lamata - Digital twins unveiling central blood pressure
Professor Lamata discusses his work creating a digital twin of the heart - a computational replica of a patient's heart - and its role in enabling the vision of precision cardiology.
Professor Miraz Rahman - Innovations in drug discovery: from cancer to infectious disease
Professor Rahman explores his career in drug discovery from completing his PhD in medicinal chemistry, to his work in discovering anti-cancer drug and finally to his most recent interest in discovering antimicrobial drugs to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Professors Simon Ameer-Beg & Heidi Lempp - 18 January 2023
Professor Simon Ameer-Beg - Quantitative Fluorescence Imaging for protein sensing in cancer
Professor Ameer-Beg describes his journey that began with studying laser physics, before applying this expertise to multiphoton microscopy within cancer research, eventually developing an interdisciplinary research program the field of time-resolved multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM).
Professor Heidi Lempp - To be or not to be…. a Medical Sociologist in Biomedical Sciences
Professor Lempp tells her story of medical sociology including creating the first job-sharing ward sister post in the UK, her experience in HIV care and her work uncovering the ‘hidden’ curriculum in medical education, before moving to her current focus on people diagnosed with long-term conditions.
Professors Georgina Ellison-Hughes & Ronak Rajani - 30 November 2022
Professor Georgina Ellison-Hughes - What becomes of the broken hearted
Professor Ellison-Hughes explores the science behind a broken heart (not just a cliché), and how she's using her expertise in regenerative medicine to develop new strategies towards rejuvenating the regenerative capacity of the diseased and aged heart.
Professor Ronak Rajani - The Career of a Clinical Academic
Professor Ronak Rajani describes his journey in researching valvular hearth disease, the inspirational figures he met along his journey and how this inspired an enthusiasm for teaching fueled by a desire to provide others with the same opportunities he enjoyed.
Professors Gudrun Kunst & Mieke Van Hemelrijck - 23 November 2022
Professor Gudrun Kunst - Paradigm shifts in cardiovascular anaesthesia
Professor Gudrun Kunst discusses her lifetime in cardiovascular anaesthesia research, focusing on the recent paradigm shifts towards kidney protection and the protection of other organs in cardiovascular anaesthesia.
Professor Mieke Van Hemelrijck - The importance of collaborations: it takes an orchestra to play a symphony
Professor Mieke Van Hemelrijck pays tribute to her various networks of collaborations that have underpinned her research in urology. She describes her research that has spanned hypospadias, transsexualism, and bladder, prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
Professors Helen Collins & Mauro Giacca - 26 October 2022
Professor Helen Collins - Immunology and Education: A game of two halves
Professor Collins describes an unlikely road down immunology research being conducted around the world, and how she transitioned towards delivering university education.
Immunology hasn’t always been my thing! My very first lecture at University was on the genetics of the MHC – enough to put anyone off! However, I fell in love with the subject during my PhD studies and this lecture is my journey through researching Immunology across the world, eventually arriving at Kings. We will travel from the UK to the USA and Berlin, studying immune responses to various pathogens, bacteria, parasites, and yeasts, before arriving back in London at King's to study autoimmunity, all underpinned by the crucial element, Iron. All this in parallel with supporting my one true passion – Arsenal FC.
Professor Mauro Giacca - New therapies for the heart
Professor Giacca explores how, with his laboratory, he has worked on developing new biological therapies for the heart to deal with the epidemic of cardiac diseases. All his work is underpinned by discovering novel molecular targets i.e. proteins, genes and RNAs.
Professors Geeta Hampson & Alexandra Santos - 28 September 2022
Professor Geeta Hampson - The intricate path to healthy bones
Professor Hampson reviews a career of research within bone, calcium, and phosphate metabolism as well as her clinical work in managing metabolic bone disorders such as osteoporosis and renal bone disease.
Professor Alexandra Santos - Improving food allergy diagnosis and our understanding of the immune response to food allergens
Professor Santos explores how she's been able to develop better tests (basophil activation test (BAT) or the mast cell activation test (MAT)) for food allergies with her research IgE antibodies.
Professor Adam Fox - 22 January 2020
Food allergy - six approaches to a problem
Professor Adam Fox, School of Life Course Sciences, will discuss his involvement in food allergy as a researcher, clinician, guideline developer, medical education and public engagement. He will reflect on what the future holds for children with food allergies and the increasing provision of services and treatment for sufferers.
Professor Brian Stramer - 22 January 2020
On the importance of basic cell biology with unknown translational impact
Professor Brian Stramer, School of Basic & Medical Biosciences, will discuss the impact of cell migration in embryogenesis and how it can play a role in pathologies such as cancer. He will demonstrate how the use of how Drosophila embryonic macrophages can be used in research to understand the mechanisms and functions of cell migration during embryogenesis.
Professor Carsten Flohr - 8 January 2020
Worms, germs, eczema and beyond
Professor Carsten Flohr, School of Basic & Medical Biosciences, will take you on a journey to Vietnam where he examined the impact of gut parasites on the risk of developing eczema and allergies. He will also talk about a breastfeeding promotion trial in Belarus and how eczema can cause food allergies through the skin. Furthermore, Carsten will show recent findings of his group on how exposure to domestic hard water can lead to eczema in infancy and on the role of the gut and skin microbiome in the disease. Finally, he will introduce some of the exciting new eczema treatments that are coming through trials into clinical practice.
Professor Sophia Karagiannis - 8 January 2020
Monoclonal antibodies for cancer therapy: insights from human immunity
Hear from Professor Sophia Karagiannis, School of Basic & Medical Biosciences, who will discuss her team’s work in unravelling previously-unappreciated mechanisms that prevent the immune system from launching effective antibodies to eradicate tumours, and how these insights inform the design of new therapeutic antibodies which are able to recruit immune cells against tumours.
Professor Alastair Baker - 8 January 2020
Counsels and maxims: the wisdom of life?
Professor Alastair Baker explores the narratives of research, clinical and non-clinical models that have influenced his development in the field of medicine.
Professor Yacoub Khalaf - 8 January 2020
The journey from sex without reproduction, to reproduction without sex
Professor Yacoub Khalaf will discuss contraception, assisted conception and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.
Professor Tim Jackson - 19 October 2019
The battle against retinal blindness: man versus machine
Hear from Professor Tim Jackson, School of Life Course Sciences, on how his research is tackling retinal blindness and disease using novel techniques.
Professor Bijan Moderai - 19 October 2019
Repair, reline, regenerate: linking translational research & vascular surgery
Hear from Professor Bijan Modarai, School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences, on his strategies for the management of patients with diseases affecting the blood vessels.
Professor Baba Inusa - 25 September 2019
A multi-dimensional approach to sickle cell disease
Hear from Baba Inusa, School of Life Course Sciences, on his strategies to improve diagnosis and care for patients with sickle cell disease worldwide.
Professor Jo Howard - 25 September 2019
Improving sickle cell outcomes from the capital to the country
Hear from Jo Howard, School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences, discuss her research to improve the outcomes of sickle cell disease for patients across the country, specifically in South East London.