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The Science and Society lecture series is pleased to announce the second lecture of 2024, with Professor Dame Angela McLean, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser delivering her lecture - Engineering Biology: Unlocking revolutionary opportunities for the UK.

Engineering biology has the potential to transform our lives. From low carbon fuels and materials to sustainable foods, to personalised and life-changing therapeutics, there are a huge range of potential applications for this technology across multiple sectors.

This lecture will outline the transformative impact that engineering biology can have on society and explore some of the most exciting opportunities that it could present in years to come.

Professor Dame Angela McLean

Professor Dame Angela McLean DBE FRS is the Government Chief Scientific Adviser having taken up the role in April 2023. She is also Head of the Government Science and Engineering Profession. Prior to this Angela was the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defence.

Until April 2023, Angela McLean was a Professor of Mathematical Biology in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University and a Fellow of All Souls College. Angela’s research interests lie in the use of mathematical models to aid our understanding of the evolution and spread of infectious agents.

Angela is interested in the use of natural science evidence in formulating public policy and has co-developed the Oxford Martin School Restatements: an activity which restructures and presents the evidence underlying an issue of policy concern or controversy in a short, uncharged, intelligible form for non-technical audiences.

Angela established Mathematical Biology at the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council’s Institute for Animal Health in 1994. Before this, Angela was a Royal Society Research Fellow at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

In 2009 Angela was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. She has been awarded the Gabor Medal in 2011 and the Weldon Memorial Prize in 2018. She received her damehood in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. In 2024 Angela was appointed an Honorary Distinguished Professor of Loughborough University.