Professor Sir Mark Walport FRS has accepted appointment as an Honorary Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Imperial College.
The appointment is for the duration of Sir Mark’s appointment as the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser.
Sir Mark Walport had been the Director of the Wellcome Trust since 2003, and before that he was Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at the College, where he led a research team that focused on the immunology and genetics of rheumatic diseases. He originally studied medicine at the University of Cambridge, completing his PhD on complement receptors under the supervision of Peter Lachmann in 1986. He was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours list for services to medical research and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011. In April this year he succeeded Professor Sir John Beddington as the Government Chief Scientific Adviser.