Lecture Theatre, Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW
The electrical activity of the body regulates our lives from the moment of conception to our last breath. Professor Dame Frances Ashcroft discusses the history of animal electricity, how it is generated, the ways it regulates our lives, the dramatic consequences when things go wrong, and the extent to which electricity is indeed the Spark of Life.
Along the way she tells stories of the ion channel proteins that are responsible for animal electricity, of toxins and therapeutic drugs that act on them, of how impaired ion channel function causes many human and animal diseases and of her own work on a rare genetic form of diabetes.
