Sir Mark Walport explores the Future of Medicine
The second in the series of 700th Anniversary Distinguished Lectures by Honorary Fellows took place yesterday, given by Sir Mark Walport (1971), who explored the future of medicine. Sir Mark Walport is Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society. He chairs Imperial College Health Partners and is a trustee of the British Museum and of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. His previous roles include chair of Kennedy Memorial Trust; non-executive director of NHS England; founding CEO of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI); Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA); co-chair of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology; Director of the Wellcome Trust; and Professor and Head of the Division of Medicine, Imperial College London.
Sir Mark delivered a lecture brimming with insight, reflecting the breadth of his experience across science, government, and healthcare. He discussed how advances in science, engineering and technology are transforming medicine, highlighting the rapid growth of digitally based medicine, and the expanding role of data and AI. He also discussed the impact of social factors on disease and explored the ‘medicine of the mind’ emphasising how much work remains to be done in this field.
