WCB is proud to have had Nick Ross as Chair of its Advisory Group since its inception in 2005. Nick has been a strong advocate of bioresourcing and its utility for innovation in healthcare and has supported WCB’s transition over the years from bio-archive to research infrastructure. Nick will be chairing a number of Expert Panels over the next four years. We hope that the Panels’ findings will contribute to the broader discussion on the future direction of bioresourcing in the UK and beyond, helping to influence UK policy and guiding WCB strategy going forward.
Nick Ross is best known as a former radio and TV presenter of live political debates and for the launch of breakfast TV. Watchdog, Call Nick Ross and Crimewatch. But away from broadcasting he has a long involvement with medical sciences and bioethics. He has served on several government inquiries including the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy, the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, the Health of the Nation Wider Working Group and the NHS Review Team, and was a member of the BMJ/King’s Fund Rationing Action Group, an Expert Advisor on Drugs to the UK’s Health Education Authority and an advisor to a King’s Fund Consensus Panel on breast cancer.
He has a long association with medical ethics as a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Royal College of Physicians medical ethics committee, and of the Academy of Medical Sciences/Royal Society/Wellcome Trust Working Party on the use of non-human primates in research.
He was a founder member of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, a member of the Committee on Public Understanding of Science, an Affiliate of the James Lind Alliance (on medical trials), chairman of the Royal Society Science Book Prize (twice), a trustee of Sense About Science, and is currently President of the Campaign for Evidence Based Healthcare (formerly Healthwatch) and a member of the steering group of the Royal College of Surgeons Clinical Research Initiative. He was a non-executive director of Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust and a board member of Health Quality Service, and has chaired healthcare conferences for the Department of Health, the NHS, royal colleges, the British Medical Association and for pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and led workshops on specialties including neurology, endocrinology, psychiatry, pain and rheumatology.
He has chaired, been president or patron of a number of health-related charities and is a life member of the Royal Society of Medicine and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal College of Surgeons