Lecture: Sydney Brenner’s Lectures

In a total of four historic lectures spread over four days, Sydney Brenner, one of the true legends of 20th century science, talked about the generation, history and impact of great ideas. More specifically Sydney Brenner, joined by Terry Sejnowski in the last two lectures, talked about the history of Molecular Biology, its impact on Neuroscience and the great scientific questions ahead of us.

Sydney Brenner has been at the centre of the development of molecular biology from its very beginning (60+ years ago). He was a key player in shaping the Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge into a cradle of molecular biology, where pioneering and seminal discoveries in the field of molecular biology haven taken place for over half a century, resulting in more than half a dozen of Nobel Prizes. His memory is a treasure trove of the history of this field and of innumerable anecdotes about the other leading scientists who made this history, and more in general of the leading scientists in the last 60 years. In his lectures, he will talk about the history and recount some of those anecdotes.

His interlocutor will be Terry Sejnowski, who is the Francis Crick professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Laboratory Head of its Computational Neurobiology Laboratory. He is also a long-term collaborator with Sydney and shares many stories and memories.