ITM 2019 Hilda Tracy Lecture

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The 2019 ITM Hilda Tracy Lecture will be held on Friday 17 May between 2:00-3:00pm in the North West Cancer Research Centre Lecture Theatre, 200 London Road.

 

The lecture will start just after 2:00pm with lunch/refreshments provided in the Boardroom next door from 1:30pm.

 

The ITM Athena SWAN team chose to name the lecture series in honour of Dr Hilda Tracy, who worked in the Physiology department with Professor Rod Gregory FRS.

 

Together they isolated and characterized the acid-secretory hormone gastrin, the first gastrointestinal hormone to be sequenced. In his obituary to her, Professor Rod Dimaline wrote: “Their scientific partnership was very much an equal one, a fact not always appreciated at the time – perhaps due in part to the then prevailing perception of the place of women in science”.

 

Professor Mark Pritchard will give an introduction at the start of the lecture.

 

We are delighted that Professor Maria Fitzgerald, FMedSci, FRS, from the Department of Neuroscience at University College London has accepted our invitation to speak.

 

Maria Fitzgerald studies the development of pain processing in the immature brain.  She is Professor of Developmental Neurobiology in the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology at University College London (UCL).  The Fitzgerald lab is internationally recognized for pioneering work in the basic biology of pain in infants and children.  She uses advanced neuroscientific recording techniques in animal models and human infants to understand the mechanisms underlying the short and long-term effects of early life pain.  She was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Anaesthetists (Pain Medicine) in 2013.  In 2016 she was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society.  She was awarded Honorary Membership the International Society for Pediatric Pain (ISPP) and the British Pain Society in 2017 and of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) in 2018, all for outstanding contributions to pain research.

 
This annual lecture has been initiated as a means to bring all our staff and students together for an interesting, accessible talk by an expert.