THE importance of Oxford in the history of medical research will be highlighted at a free public talk to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS.

Director of the National Institute of Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR BRC), professor Keith Channon will host the event exploring how the city’s hospitals and the University’s medical school work increasingly closer together to benefit NHS patients.

From Roger Bacon's conception of science as the experimental and inductive study of nature in the 1200s to Dorothy Hodgkin's discovery of the structure of penicillin during World War II, Oxford has been the centre for some of the world's most important medical discoveries.

As well as Oxford's historical medical breakthroughs, prof Channon will look forward to some of the medical innovations that Oxford-based researchers are currently working on in the city's hospitals.

The talk will take place in Lecture Theatre 1 in the Academic Centre of the John Radcliffe Hospital at 6:30 pm on Monday, July 2.

The Oxford BRC is also organising behind-the-scenes tours of research facilities, including two tours of the Vaccine Laboratories at the Jenner Institute, near the Churchill Hospital, and two tours of the University of Oxford’s Acute Vascular Imaging Centre (AVIC), at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

For more information visit oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk/brc-events/