Professor Birchall - Roche Lecture
04 July 2011
Above: (Left to Right) Head Girl, Mr J E Waszek (Principal), Professor M Birchall, Mrs J Greensmith, Head Boy.
Below: Professor M Birchall with fellow members of the Class of 1979 and his former teacher Mr T Edwards.
On Thursday 16 June, internationally renowned surgeon and Old Edwardian Professor Martin Birchall, gave a lecture in the College Hall entitled Prometheus and I: a Surgeon's Odyssey.
Having left St Edward’s in 1979 Martin read medicine at Cambridge University from where he graduated in 1984. His appointments have included the Chair of Head and Neck Surgery in Liverpool and Bristol. His special interest is in Head and Neck Surgery and Laryngology.
He is currently professor of Laryngology at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear hospital leading the largest Ear Nose and Throat research group in the UK, focused on developing newer and better treatments for throat diseases. A leading innovator in his field he has dedicated his career to finding solutions to the problems faced by people with throat diseases and his work on transplantation, immunology and nerve repair culminated in 2008 in a pan-European project to tissue-engineer a new windpipe for a Columbian woman, which was much publicised world-wide.
In January 2011, Professor Birchall was scientific advisor and UK member of the surgical team that performed a rare larynx (voicebox) transplant on a US patient, attracting more worldwide attention. This was also unique because Professor Birchall’s team repaired the nerves so the muscles in the larynx can move again.
Organ transplants have been a key part of healthcare for decades, saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the UK. But they have major drawbacks: depending on a pool of potential donors and requiring a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs. Professor Birchall’s aim is to avoid this in the long run, which is why he is at the forefront of exploration into stem cell technologies to make custom-made alternatives.
It was an honour for pupils, parents, staff, ex-pupils and friends of the College to have the opportunity to hear an internationally renowned and trailblazing surgeon speak.
His speech was inspiring to a great number of our pupils and we are sure it will give them the momentum to continue to work hard to achieve their goals.
This was the second lecture in the Roche Society Lecture series, which aims to provide pupils and friends of the College with the opportunity to hear nationally and internationally renowned individuals speak about the most pertinent issues facing the World today.
A Question and Answer session was chaired by Mrs Judith Greensmith CBE.
