Professor Genn will focus on the critical ways in which courts support society and the economy and on how they have directly improved standards of medicine practice and health care. She will also discuss new evidence about the link between access to justice and health and consider whether much of what turns up in doctors’ surgeries (including requests for anti-depressants) are in fact the results of an inability to access the courts.

On World Aids Day, this lecture discusses how the AIDS epidemic continues to grow despite our immense knowledge of the virus itself. Professor Pillay will examine some of the failures of the HIV vaccination programme and look at how the roll out of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to the developing world is a priority. Professor Pillay will also discuss how ART is merging with prevention and rapidly becoming the major tool in the fight against HIV.

To mark Age Concern Week. Research into ageing has been rejuvenated by the discovery that genetic alterations extend the lifespan of laboratory animals. These mutations keep animals healthy for longer and protect them from many of the diseases of ageing. Professor Partridge will look at how this and other discoveries have led to a new wave of research directed at understanding how these changes can increase healthy lifespan in humans.