COLIN BLAKEMORE, FMedSci, FRS, is Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council (MRC).

He studied Medical Sciences at Cambridge and completed a PhD at the University of California in Berkeley. After 11 years in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge, he became Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford in 1979 and was Director of the MRC IRC for Cognitive Neuroscience for 8 years.

His research is concerned with vision and the early development of the brain. He has been President of the British Neuroscience Association, the Physiological Society and the new Biosciences Federation. He has also been President and Chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and he is strongly committed to the public communication of science.

Dr. Blakemore is the author of The Mind's Brain.

Beyond Edge: The Medical Research Council