Institute of Continuing Education (ICE)
Today's world is faced with a multiplicity of challenges including energy, food, water and economic well-being. Each of these will ultimately culminate in an impact on the agenda for the development of health services. Medicine is currently, in practice, unaffordable for much of the world's population, but how best to deal with core issues concerning child health, maternal health, and dependency and care for those with chronic diseases, are issues which must be addressed in any civilised society.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz was installed as the 345th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge on 1 October 2010. The Vice-Chancellor is the principal academic and administrative officer of the University.
Sir Leszek was previously Chief Executive of the UK’s Medical Research Council (2007-10). From 2001 to 2007 he was at Imperial College London, as Principal of the Faculty of Medicine and later as Deputy Rector, responsible for the overall academic and scientific direction of the institution. He led the development of inter-disciplinary research between engineering, physical sciences and biomedicine.
In 1988 he was a Lecturer in Medicine at Cambridge. He went on to be Professor of Medicine at the University of Wales in Cardiff, where he led a research team that carried out the pioneering work on vaccines for which he was knighted in 2001. In particular, his unit in Cardiff conducted clinical trials for a therapeutic vaccine for human papillomavirus (a cause of cervical cancer) – the first in Europe.
He was a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1996 and a member of its Council from 1997 until 2002; and he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2008.
The Madingley Lectures take place at Madingley Hall, home of the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE). This lecture series, given by eminent speakers across a wide range of subjects, is an important part of ICE's commitment to public engagement.
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