Winston, Robert

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Winston, Robert

(Robert M.L. Winston)

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Physician, geneticist. Imperial College, London, England, professor of fertility studies; Sheffield Hallam University, chancellor elect; member of the British House of Lords. Presenter for the British Broadcasting Corporation television series "Human Body" and "Super Human."

AWARDS, HONORS:

Made a life peer, 1995.

WRITINGS:

What We Know about Infertility, Free Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Getting Pregnant, Anaya, 1989.

Infertility, Martin Dunitz (London, England), 1993, revised edition, Optima (London, England), 1994.

Making Babies: A Personal View of IVF, BBC Books (London, England), 1996.

Genetic Manipulation, Phoenix (London, England), 1997.

The Experimental Womb: The Definitive Guide to Assisted Reproductive Techniques, Ebury (London, England), 1998, published as The IVF Revolution: The Definitive Guide to Assisted Reproduction Techniques, Vermillon (London, England), 1999.

(With Lori Oliwenstein) Superhuman: The Awesome Power Within, Dorling Kindersley (New York, NY), 2000.

What Makes Me Me?, Dorling Kindersley (New York, NY), 2004.

The Story of God, Bantam Press (London, England), 2005.

Editorial consultant, with Don E. Wilson, for Human, Dorling Kindersley (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert Winston's field of concentration is human reproduction and fertility. He has long worked with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the later technology that allows men to become surrogate fathers by fathering offspring that are not genetically their own with the sperm of another male. He has also been the presenter for two British television series that focus on human biology. New Statesman writer Andrew Billen reviewed an episode of one these television series, "Superhuman," that featured a team of technicians fussing over a giant naked human body, the sex of which was discreetly concealed. Billen commented that "it was not Lord Winston's body, as it so easily could have been. The BBC has long since become fascinated by this avuncular icon's bodily functions. In his previous series, "The Human Body," he peered down a microscope at one of his own ejaculations. In this series, he has so far restricted the intimacy to having the camera follow a pill's progress past his moustache and into his stomach, and to standing in his boxer shorts in an igloo to make a point about body temperature."