Frances Ashcroft

Fran Ashcroft is one of Britain’s foremost scientists – she’s the Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Research Professor at the University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford, UK, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. As well winning many prizes for her research into the role of insulin in the body she has been a force in promoting the public understanding of science, and won the 2012 L'Oreal/UNESCO Women in Science award. She has written two acclaimed books of popular science Life at the Extremes and The Spark of Life.