Designer Babies: Human genetic engineering is a step too far.
Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College of Darlington and Elfed High School of Buckley, North Wales face off in the finals of the Debating Matters Competition hosted by the Institute of Ideas and Pfizer.
Bio
Rebecca Castle
Rebecca Castle is a Student and on the Queen Elizabeth College Debate Team.
Tom Davies
Tom Davies is a Student and a member of the Elfed High School Debate Team.
Claire Fox
Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas (IoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint.
Fox initiated the IoI while co-publisher of the current affairs journal LM magazine (formerly Living Marxism). The IoI has since worked with a variety of prestigious institutions in Britain and abroad.
Fox is a panelist on BBC Radio 4's "The Moral Maze" and is regularly invited to comment on developments in culture, education and the media on TV and radio. Fox writes regularly for national newspapers and a range of specialist journals. Fox has a monthly column in the Municipal Journal.
Rachel Greener
Rachel Greener is a Student and a member of the Elfed High School Debate Team.
Dennis Hayes
Dr Dennis Hayes is based at the Urban Learning Foundation in East London, where he is researching and developing innovative approaches to further education teacher training. He is the joint president of the University and College Union (UCU), the largest tertiary-education union in the world, and the national co-ordinator of the Institute of Ideas' Education Forum. He also writes a 'Backchat' column for 'FE Focus' in The Times Educational Supplement.
He is the author of many other best-selling books including: Defending Higher Education: the Crisis of Confidence in the Academy (2005), The Routledge Falmer Guide to Key Debates in Education (2004), Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education (2003), Working in Post-Compulsory Education (2003), and The McDonaldization of Higher Education (2002). Forthcoming publications include The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (2007, co-authored with Kathryn Ecclestone) and A Lecturer's Guide to Further Education (co-editor, 2007).
Dr Hayes is currently the Head of the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) at Canterbury Christ Church University, and previous to that, head of the Department of Post-Compulsory Education. A trained philosopher, he has taught in secondary and special schools as well as in further and higher education.
Dr Dennis Hayes is one of the founders of Academics for Academic Freedom. He is currently researching the state of academic freedom in new (post-1992) and old universities.
Dr. Ruth McKernan
Ruth McKernan graduated from the University of London with joint honours in biochemistry and pharmacology and gained her PhD studying the mechanism of action of antidepressant drugs. She spent two years at the University of California in San Diego before returning to the UK to join the pharmaceutical company, Merck. Her 17 years at Merck included three years as Vice President and Head of the Neuroscience Research Centre. In 2005, Ruth joined Pfizer and is now Vice President for External Research in Europe. She is a renowned scientist, author of over 120 publications on neuroscience and is a visiting Professor at London’s Institute of Psychiatry. Her first book for non-scientists, Billy’s Halo, was short-listed for the 2007 MIND awards.
Chris Wakefield
Chris Wakefield is a Student and on the Queen Elizabeth College Debate Team.
Mark Walport
Mark Walport was appointed as Director of the Wellcome Trust in June 2003. He heads one of the world's largest biomedical research charities, which spends some £400 million a year in pursuit of its mission to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health.
Before joining the Trust, he was Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London where he led a research team that focused on the immunology and genetics of rheumatic diseases. He was appointed a member of the Council for Science and Technology in 2004.