One has to understand the functioning of the normal brain before studying the badly malfunctioning brain.
— Mark Walport
Henry Wellcome certainly was a talented character with a colorful and amazing personal story.
We owe it to ourselves and to our policy makers to have a high standard of public debate about the future of our energy supplies.
The problem of poor vision has gone unnoticed for too long - it's astounding that 700 years after glasses were first invented, there are still 2.5 billion people across the world without access to something as simple as eye screening or a pair of glasses.
Maximum distribution of research findings is essential to maximise their impact.
The government is right to recognise the importance of science and technology, but I think it is a mistake to ringfence funds.
I think publishing is a cost of research in the same way as buying a centrifuge is a cost of research.
Scientists have argued that research is good for health, wealth, and society, and the government has trusted them on that.
I was always taught at medical school that you should never do a test unless you could do something with the result.
The European Parliament must send a clear sign that it recognises the importance of embryonic stem cell research.
Forensic science offers great potential, as it draws on almost every discipline and, in doing so, creates widespread opportunity for innovation.
Distributed ledgers are inherently harder to attack because instead of a single database, there are multiple shared copies of the same database, so a cyber stack would have to attack all the copies simultaneously to be successful.
Distributed ledger technologies have the potential to help governments to collect taxes, deliver benefits, issue passports, record land registries, assure the supply chain of goods, and generally ensure the integrity of government records and services.
We pretend that the debate about genetically modified crops is a debate about science when the reality is, actually, that the science is very clear. It is really a debate about values.
Public trust is a vital condition for artificial intelligence to be used productively.
The most dangerous infections of humans have always been those which have emerged from other species.
My job is to advise politicians, elected officials, and government ministries of the best way to deal with important issues, both localized, national, and the grand challenges facing humanity.
A small number of people can make a lot of noise.
No one likes doing primate experiments, but some research can only be done on monkeys.
Science is not finished until it is communicated.
Wellcome Collection will be an exciting place in which to explore themes of human well-being, starting with the powerful collections of Sir Henry Wellcome.
The Wellcome Trust will retain a level of financial flexibility which will enable us to react quickly to unexpected developments and new ideas.
There is usually a long interval between important scientific discoveries and impact on human health.
We clearly have to reduce harmful energy emissions. Everyone acknowledges we simply can't switch off fossil fuels overnight.
We're learning how infections are travelling around the world and, sadly, how cholera in Haiti was brought in by U.N. peacekeeping forces from south Asia.
We do some experiments in humans, some in mice, and there are some questions that can only be answered in nonhuman primates. It's true that you can't immediately say that those experiments will translate into human health, but nevertheless, it is obvious that having an understanding of human memory is going to be important for human health.
Science can tell us what can be done in principle, but it is then a matter for public debate as to what should be done. And ultimately, it is a role for politicians to decide the answers.
It would be silly not to admit that there are some sections of the public who are unconvinced by the benefits or have doubts about the motives behind it. We have to be clear that GM is not all about profits for multinational companies.
It was and has been one of the major interventions in public health, and it's absolutely vital that people vaccinate their children.
Medical engineering is one of the areas in which the traditional 'silo' structures of university disciplines have not encouraged collaboration.
The involvement of clinicians, researchers, and, most importantly, the thousands of people who have donated DNA samples will help us to correlate genetic variation with individual variation in health and disease and help to deliver on the long-term promise of the Human Genome Project.
It is important to recognise that, alongside the huge benefits that artificial intelligence offers, there are potential ethical issues associated with some uses.
The U.K. is fortunate in its geographical position. We're an island. But we are living in a completely interconnected world where disruptions in countries far away will have major impacts.
Like Israel, the U.K. is a democracy, and like Israel, we would never want to muzzle political voices, whatever their opinions - and that is especially true for universities.
Wellcome Trust focuses on supporting outstanding researchers, accelerating the application of research, and exploring medicine in historical and cultural contexts. We believe passionately that breakthroughs emerge when the most talented researchers are given the resources and freedom they need to pursue their goals.
Of course methane is a fossil fuel, but as long as it is burned efficiently and fugitive emissions of methane gas are minimised, it is a less harmful fossil fuel than coal and oil and is an important way-station on the global journey towards low-carbon energy.
In medicine, there is always a balance between risk and benefit.
When you check into a hotel, they don't need to know your name and address; they just need to know that the bill will be paid. People should ask questions.
It is absolutely key that funding is used to support the best scientists with the best ideas.
One of the biggest costs in the whole scientific publishing world is borne by the academic community, which is the peer review.
Clearly, climate change is an extremely important threat to us.
The question is, are there useful things that we can do with the results of a genome sequence that would bring benefit? And the answer is, today, should the majority of people go and have their genome sequenced? Probably not. But are there particular circumstances in which genome sequencing is really helpful? Yes, there are.
People go on exploration; they're trying to find places that weren't known before. But it is an inevitable fact of research, as is in any other form of exploration of the unknown, that some people find they go down a dead end.
Forensic techniques are enormously useful in a wide range of fields outside the criminal justice system.
When the correct tests are done, GM products are as safe as their non-GM counterparts.
We need to show why the government should be funding science and how that funding delivers.
We take it for granted that because our shelves and supermarkets are heaving with food that there are no problems with food security. But we have limited land in the U.K., and climate disruption and population growth are putting pressure on food supply.
David Sainsbury has been good for science and good for innovation in the U.K. He has been an outstanding science minister and shown extraordinary passion and commitment to his portfolio.
In the case of health information, I spent twenty-five years practicing medicine, and I was all too familiar with the fact that information wasn't properly shared, so I wouldn't know exactly what was in the hospital records; patients would be lost. Computerization gives the opportunity to actually get the information much better.
Climate change is happening, and humans are significant contributors, and that raises some really important policy questions.
