Prof. Colin Blakemore

Colin Blakemore is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Emeritus Professor at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore. He has advisory roles in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, and chairs the General Advisory Committee on Science at the Food Standards Agency. From 2003 to 7 he was Chief Executive of the UK Medical Research Council. 

Colin studied Medical Sciences at Cambridge and did a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. After working for 11 years in Cambridge, he moved to Oxford as Waynflete Professor of Physiology in 1979. From 1996 to 2003 he was also Director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience. His research has been concerned with many aspects of vision, development and “plasticity” of the brain, and neurodegenerative disorders. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society and several foreign academies. Colin has been President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the British Neuroscience Association, the Physiological Society and the Society of Biology. He chaired the Royal Society’s review of neuroscience and public policy, Brain Waves, which included a report on the implications of brain research for education. 

He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television, has written books about science for a general audience and writes frequently for the national press. He holds 10 honorary degrees and has won prizes for both his research and his work in the public communication of science, including the David Ferrier and Michael Faraday Prizes of the Royal Society.