Executive chair of the MRC and stem cell expert, Professor Watt spoke on her ‘Adventures in Skin Biology’

Professor Fiona Watt, who is also Director of the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King's College London, delivered this year’s Distinguished Christmas Lecture for Imperial’s Hammersmith and White City Campus. An annual event since 2009, previous Christmas lecturers have included Professor Dame Sally Davies, Sir Mark Walport and last year, Sir Paul Nurse.  

Professor Watt said “I’m very fond of the Hammersmith, or the RPSM as it was when I first moved to London. The campus has got smarter and smarter over the years and it’s always really nice to be here.” 

Speaking about some of the most recent work conducted in her lab, Professor Watt said “I wanted to show how it is anchored in problems that we’ve been interested in for a very long time.” You can watch the full lecture below.

Professor Watt obtained her DPhil in cell biology from the University of Oxford and carried out postdoctoral research at MIT. She established her first research group at the Kennedy Institute for Rheumatology and then spent 20 years at the CRUK London Research Institute before moving to Cambridge. In 2012 she moved to King's College London to found the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine. She is internationally recognised for her work on stem cells in healthy and diseased tissues and has a research interest in oral cancer. She?is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.