Exeter Professor joins Nobel Week Dialogue

Nobel Laureates and world renowned scientists will gather on 9 December 2012 in Stockholm for the inaugural Nobel Week Dialogue, and University of Exeter philosopher of science Professor John Dupré will be among them.

The one-day meeting, on the theme of The Genetic Revolution and its Impact on Society, will take place the day before this year's Nobel Prize award ceremony as a special celebration of the 50th anniversary of the award of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins.

Participants will include seven Nobel Laureates, including James Watson himself. The meeting, which is expected to attract an audience of more than 1,000 people, will review the past 50 years of progress in genetics and genomics, assess the implications for today’s society, and look towards future trends.

Professor Dupré is the director of Egenis, a research centre which explores the impact of genetic science on society. “I am very honoured to be asked to join this very august group of discussants,” he said, "especially on an occasion that marks such a decisive moment in the history of scientific understanding of life. This occasion also recognises the importance of building bridges between science and the wider society, something that has always been at the centre of our mission at Egenis".

The organisers say, “With this event the Nobel Institutions aim to deepen the dialogue between the scientific community and the rest of society on issues connected with the Nobel Prize and of importance for the world. Among the topics we hope to address are the science and economics of personalized medicine and disease genetics; the genetic revolution in agriculture; genetics and the environment; regulation of gene expression; synthetic biology and human evolution.”

University of Exeter Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer Professor Nick Talbot said, “This is a great personal honour for Professor Dupré, who is one of our leading academics and a key opinion-former in understanding ethical implications of biological research and particularly genomics. We are extremely proud of his achievements and honoured that the University of Exeter will be represented by Professor Dupré.”

In order to extend the reach of the meeting beyond the live audience in Stockholm, the proceedings will be streamed to a worldwide online audience via Nobelprize.org and the dedicated Nobel Week Dialogue micro site, as well as recorded for posting as video on demand on the Internet.