Robert Winston, Baron Winston

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Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston (born 15 July 1940) is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter, and Labour peer.

Early life

Robert Winston was born in London to Laurence Winston and Ruth Winston-Fox, and brought up as an Orthodox Jew. His mother was mayor of the former borough of Southgate. Winston's father died as a result of medical negligence when Winston was nine years old. Robert has two younger siblings: a sister, the artist Willow Winston, and a brother.<ref name="telegraph">Robert Winston: 'I do have a very dark side', The Daily Telegraph, 15 August 2008</ref>

Winston attended firstly Salcombe Preparatory School until the age of seven, followed by Colet Court and St Paul's School, later graduating from the London Hospital Medical College in 1964 with a degree in medicine and surgery. He achieved prominence as an expert in human fertility. For a brief time, he gave up clinical medicine and worked as a theatre director,<ref>Lemon TI, I am a man—nothing human is alien to me Student BMJ 2013;21:f7203</ref> winning the National Directors' Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1969.<ref name="shu">University Chancellor Professor the Lord Winston Sheffield Hallam University</ref>

Medical career

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Winston joined Hammersmith Hospital in the capacity of registrar in 1970 as a Wellcome Research Fellow. He became an associate professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in 1975. Between 1975 and 1977, he was a scientific advisor to the World Health Organization's programme in human reproduction, after which he joined the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (based at Hammersmith Hospital) as a consultant and reader in 1977.

After conducting research as a professor of gynaecology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1980, he returned to the UK to run the IVF service set up at Hammersmith Hospital, which pioneered various improvements in this technology, becoming Dean of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology until its merger with Imperial College in 1997. He was the director of NHS Research and Development at the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust until 1994. As a professor of fertility studies at Hammersmith, Winston led the IVF team that pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to identify defects in human embryos and published early work on gene expression in human embryos. He developed tubal microsurgery and various techniques in reproductive surgery, including sterilisation reversal. He performed the world's first fallopian tubal transplant in 1979, a technology that was later superseded by in vitro fertilisation. Together with Alan Handyside in 1990, his research group pioneered the techniques of pre-implantation diagnosis, enabling screening of human embryos to prevent numerous genetic diseases.

Winston was the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 2004 to 2005. Together with Carol Readhead of the California Institute of Technology, he researched male germ cell stem cells and methods for their genetic modification at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London. He has published over 300 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.<ref>Scientific Publications in Peer-review Journals, The Official Site of Professor Robert Winston, accessed on 26 October 2008</ref>

Winston was appointed to a new chair at Imperial College—Professor of Science and Society—and is also emeritus professor of fertility studies there. He was chairman of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Trust and chairs the Women-for-Women Appeal. This charitable trust, which has raised over £80 million for research into reproductive diseases, was renamed the Genesis Research Trust in 1997. From 2001 to 2018, he was chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.<ref name="New chancellor 2018">Template:Cite web</ref>

Winston is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, an honorary fellow<ref name="List of Fellows">Template:Cite web</ref> of the Royal Academy of Engineering,<ref name="List of Fellows" /> a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and the Royal Society of Biology. He holds honorary doctorates from twenty-three universities,<ref>Biography, Official Site of Professor Robert Winston.</ref> is a trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, and a patron of the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Opinions

Fertility treatment

Winston holds strong views about the commercialisation of fertility treatment. He believes that ineffective treatments result in great anguish to couples and is alarmed that so many treatments for the symptom of infertility are carried out before proper investigation and diagnosis have been made. He is also sceptical about the effectiveness of current methods for screening human embryos to assess their viability.<ref name="telegraph" />

Gender-affirming surgery

Winston has called gender-affirming surgery "mutilation" and has said that "we can remove bits of our body and change our shape and so on but you can't change your sex because that is embedded in your genes in every cell of your body".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Science as truth

Winston has said, "I think there has to be a clear understanding that science is not the truth. It's a version of the truth."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Media career

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Appearing on After Dark in 1994

Winston has been the presenter of many BBC television series, including Your Life in Their Hands, Making Babies, Superhuman, The Secret Life of Twins, Child of Our Time, Human Instinct, The Human Mind, Frontiers of Medicine, The Story of God, and the BAFTA award-winner The Human Body.

In 2003, he presented the BBC documentary Walking with Cavemen, a series that introduced some controversial views about early humans but was endorsed by anthropologists and scientists. One of its theories was that Homo sapiens have a uniquely developed imagination that helped them to survive.

Winston's documentary Threads of Life won the international science film prize in Paris in 2005. His BBC series Child Against All Odds explored ethical questions raised by IVF treatment. In 2008, he presented Super Doctors, about decisions made in frontier medicine.

Winston at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2011

In 2007, Winston appeared in the TV series Play It Again, in which he attempted to learn to play the saxophone, despite not having played a musical instrument since the age of 11, when he learned the recorder.<ref>Play It Again: Robert Winston takes up the saxophone, BBC</ref>

Among many BBC Radio 4 programmes, he has appeared on The Archers radio soap as a fertility consultant. He has regularly appeared on The Wright Stuff as a panellist as well as on numerous chat show programmes, such as Have I Got News for You, This Morning, The One Show, and various political programmes such as Question Time and Any Questions. Winston is featured in the 2011 Symphony of Science episode "Ode to the Brain".

Political career

Winston was made a life peer on 18 December 1995 as Baron Winston, of Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>Lord Winston. Parliament.uk</ref> He sits on the Labour Party benches in the House of Lords as that party's whip. He speaks on topics of education, science, medicine, and the arts. He was chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and TechnologyTemplate:When and is a board member and vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which provides advice to both houses of Parliament.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 31 July 2025, he was a signatory of a letter from 38 House of Lords members opposing the UK's plan to recognise a state of Palestine: the peers said Palestine "does not meet the international law criteria for recognition of a state, namely, defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Winston has made a number of claims suggesting that segregated cycle lanes cause greater air pollution and emissions in Central London.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He is a member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, an advisory board created in 2019 and sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which works on ethical and innovative deployment of data-enabled technologies, including artificial intelligence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

In 1973, Winston married Lira Helen Feigenbaum (born 8 August 1949). They have three children, including Ben, who is a film and TV producer and director. Feigenbaum died on 9 December 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Winston is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a former vice-president of the Royal College of Music, and a member of the Garrick Club, the MCC, and the Athenaeum Club in London.<ref name="shu" />

He was a council member of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK, and until 2013, of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, where he chaired the Societal Issues Panel.<ref name="shu" /> He regularly gives public lectures on scientific subjects and has helped promote science literacy and education by founding the Reach Out Laboratory at Imperial College, which brings schoolchildren of all ages into the university on a daily basis to do practical science and to debate issues that science and technology raise.<ref name="telegraph" /> Extending this school outreach activity, he acts as ambassador for outreach for the president of Imperial College, visiting schools across England to discuss scientific issues and career aspirations with students.Template:Citation needed

Current posts

Selected former posts

Selected honours and awards

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Honorary degrees

Winston has received at least 23 honorary degrees. These include:

Location Date School Honorary doctorate
Template:Flagu 14 July 2003 University of Sunderland Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 8 September 2003 University of Salford Doctorate<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Template:Flagu 2004 Solent University Doctor of Technology (D.Tech.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 2005 Lancaster University Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 5 July 2010 University of Aberdeen Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 22 July 2011 Loughborough University Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 5 September 2014 Birmingham City University Doctorate<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu 5 November 2015 Weizmann Institute of Science Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Television documentaries

Selected published work

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  • "Reversibility of Female Sterilization" (1978)
  • Co-author, "Tubal Infertility" (1981)
  • Infertility – a sympathetic approach (1985)
  • "Getting Pregnant" (1989)
  • "Making Babies" (1996)
  • The IVF Revolution (1999)
  • Superhuman (2000)
  • Human Instinct (2003)
  • The Human Mind (2004), shortlisted for Royal Society Aventis Prize
  • What Makes Me Me (2005), winner, Royal Society young people's book prize<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>
  • Human (2005), BMA Award for best popular medicine book
  • The Story of God (2005) Template:ISBN
  • "Body" (2005)
  • "When Science Meets God", BBC News, 2 December 2005<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • "Why Do We Believe in God?", The Guardian, 13 October 2005<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • A Child Against All Odds (2006)
  • Play It Again (2007)
  • It's Elementary (2007)
  • Evolution Revolution (2009)
  • "What Goes on Inside My head" (2010)
  • "Science Year by Year" (2011)
  • That's Life (2012)
  • Bad Ideas? An Arresting History of Our Inventions (2010)
  • Utterly Amazing Science (2014), winner, Royal Society young people's book prize<ref name=":0" />
  • "Utterly Amazing Body" (2015)
  • "The Essential Fertility Guide" (2015)

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References

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