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Save the Date! Reimagining Scientific Imagery - visual dialogues in the Life Sciences
1st July 2025 6:00pm-9:00pm
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre - 25 Howland Street London W1T 4JG
The Private View brings together researchers from across Faculty of Life Sciences disciplines with artist and Slade School of Fine Art PhD student Mary Yacoob, to explore how scientific and artistic practices can intersect to generate speculative and exploratory visions of research.
We unveil a captivating series of large-scale cyanotype prints inspired by the visual language of scientific research. Developed through in-depth conversations and lab visits with Faculty of Life Sciences researchers, Mary’s work reimagines scientific visual data — microscopy, diagrams, and hand-drawn sketches —as layered, aesthetic experiences. Her intricate blueprints merge timescales and disciplines, inviting viewers to experience research through a new lens, where artistic interpretation and scientific precision converge in imaginative ways.
Book tickets on our Eventbrite now!
Previous Faculty of Life Sciences Alumni events
Life Sciences Lecture Series Summer 2025 | Form and Function: From living to non-living and back again
5 June 2025 6:00pm-9:00pm
Gustave Tuck, Main Building, followed by reception at the Grant Museum
Speaker: Yanlan Mao, Professor of Developmental Biophysics at UCL Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, Deputy Director of Institute for the Physics of Living Systems
What differentiates living from non-living matter? Professor Yanlan Mao presented how the biophysical properties of living matter enable them to grow, morph, adapt and repair, generating diverse yet sustainable biological form and function in nature’s perfect circular economy. She examined the problems with the non-living matter that we use to build our world around us today, from plastics to textiles to concrete, creating a world far from nature’s perfect balance. She also discussed how we can take inspiration from nature to create animate materials to make and build a more sustainable and regenerative future.
Life Sciences Lecture Series Winter 2024 | A future we can get to safely: Why and how biodiversity matters
4 Dec 2024, 6:00pm-9:00pm
JZ Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, followed by reception at the Grant Museum
Jon Bridle discussed the value of biodiversity, and how its rapid loss affects poverty, health and social justice. He highlighted the role of biological research - and universities more broadly - in tackling the ecological and the climate crisis, and the way that these emergencies interact. Jon described GEE research on biodiversity and its consequences for ecological resilience, and why and how it matters, using examples from European daisies and butterflies, to tropical fruitflies, and the emergence of novel diseases. He also highlighted UCL’s important work to understand when and where populations can evolve and persist in response to environmental change, and biology's lessons for those humans who want to live on this planet as if we intend to stay here.
Life Sciences Series Summer Lecture | Gut feelings – how gut health impacts disease
4 July 2024, 6:00pm-8:00pm
UCL Anatomy Building
Professor Simon Gaisford delved into the fascinating world of the human gut, with a particular emphasis on the microbiota—the diverse collection of microorganisms that reside within us. He examined how imbalances in the microbiota are implicated in a range of diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Furthermore, drawing on his extensive research, he discussed the potential benefits of probiotic supplements in managing and improving gut health.
2024 FLS Anne McLaren Lecture | Celebrating Women in Science
24 April 2024, 4:00pm-7:00pm
WIlkins Building
Professor Uchegbu spoke about the design, synthesis and construction of nanotechnologies and nanoenabled medicine candidates and their translation into human medicines. This research is aimed at addressing significant unmet medical need.
Life Sciences Series Winter Lecture | Past Lives
29 February 2024, 6:00pm–8:00pm
UCL Anatomy Building
Dr Laura Porro, UCL Department of Cell & Developmental Biology and Centre for Integrative Anatomy, gave the Winter Faculty of Life Sciences Alumni lecture. Laura detailed her recent work exploring the evolution of skull form and function across two major evolutionary transitions: the conquest of the land by vertebrates nearly 400 million years ago and the rise of early dinosaurs to dominate life on land.
Life Sciences Series Winter Lecture | Bench to Bedside: bringing insights from basic research towards treatment for patients
5 February 2020, 6:30pm–8:30pm
Cruciform Building
UCL Life Sciences alumni were invited to hear Professor Stephanie Schorge reveal how basic 'blue sky' research into the behaviour of neurons has led to funding for a clinical trial to treat patients with severe epilepsy. Building on UCL’s neuroscience tradition, they explored how mutations in human genes that cause neurological disease such as epilepsy, cause the behaviours of neurons to change. Stephanie presented how the first study of gene therapy in a rat model of epilepsy was able to stop seizures. Since this first study, Stephanie and her collaborators have developed a portfolio of new possible ways to stop seizure activity in different models. Stephanie commented ‘This work represents the best of collaboration at UCL, where basic scientists in NPP, clinicians and scientists in the Queen Square ION, as well as surgeons in the NHNN, and experts in translational neuroscience at the School of Pharmacy have joined together to bring basic research through to clinical trial.’
