Judges
The 2009 Wellcome Trust Book Prize judging panel.
Jo Brand (Chair)
Before hitting the UK comedy circuit at the age of 29, Jo Brand spent ten years as a psychiatric nurse in London, experiencing first-hand the day-to-day troubles of the clinically depressed. She soon became one of the most successful alternative comedians in the country. Her award-winning Channel 4 programme, 'Through the Cakehole' made her a household name, and she has remained a television favourite, appearing on shows including 'QI', 'Have I Got News for You' and 'Question Time' while also touring theatres regularly as a stand-up. In 2005, Jo was one of the judges of the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has written three novels.
Richard Barnett
Richard Barnett studied medicine in London before becoming a historian. He took a PhD at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, and now teaches the history of modern medicine and the history of evolution in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. His first book, 'Medical London: City of diseases, city of cures', is published by Strange Attractor Press for Wellcome Collection. He received the 2006 Promis Prize for poetry, and is currently working on a first collection of poems.
Richard Barnett replaced Brian Hurwitz on the judging panel.
Quentin Cooper
Science journalist Quentin Cooper presents Radio 4's 'The Material World', the show that reports new developments in science around the world. He is a film, television and radio critic and hosts the annual X-Change debates for the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He recently presented a discussion of science in crime fiction at the BA Festival of Science 2008.
Gwyneth Lewis
Gwyneth Lewis was appointed Wales’s first National Poet from 2005 to 2006. She has published six books of poetry in Welsh and English, two non-fiction books and three libretti for the Welsh National Opera. She was Poet in Residence at the Physics and Astronomy department of Cardiff University in 2005, and is currently a member of the Welsh Academi. She is also a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
Raymond Tallis
Between 1987 and 2006 Raymond Tallis was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford. In March 2006 he became a full-time writer, though he remains Visiting Professor at St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London. He has published fiction, three volumes of poetry, and over a dozen books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism.