The University of Nottingham is delighted to host the Society for Reproduction and Fertility as part of the Sex in Three Cities Public Lecture series, with Professor Richard Sharpe, University of Edinburgh, presenting ‘Programmed for sex’.

The reason that each of us exists is to reproduce. Our bodies are simply vehicles via which our germ cell DNA can be passed on to the next generation and thus remain ‘immortal’. As a consequence, every aspect of our body (its physiology and even its shape), mind and behaviour are fashioned for this one purpose. This ‘programming for sex’ is amongst the earliest events to occur in fetal life, and gives rise to the greatest pleasures and distresses of our adult lives and dictates our behaviour, especially in males.

Speaker biography

Richard Sharpe is based in the MRC/University Centre for Reproductive Health in Edinburgh where he has led a research programme on developmental disorders of (mainly male) reproductive health for many years. He is an Honorary Professor in Edinburgh University’s College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His expertise and research interests cover sexual differentiation, reproductive development and puberty (and disorders thereof), fetal programming, endocrinology, the effects of lifestyle (smoking, obesity, diet, use of personal care products), drugs and environmental chemical exposures on reproductive development and function. He is especially interested in the inter-relationships between diet, lifestyle and health and their reproductive and other health effects, such as obesity, and has become increasingly interested in how such factors may affect future generations via epigenetic changes to the germline.

This lecture is free and all are welcome however, please register online.

For more information, please visit the Society for Reproduction and Fertility website.