Lara Marks

Dr Lara Marks is a visiting research fellow with Professor Gordon Dougan's team at the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre at Cambridge University, which specialises in the molecular mechanisms involved in infection and resistance to treatments like antibiotics.

She is a historian of medicine who has done extensive research on the history of biotechnology and vaccines and recently conducted a series of interviews with leading researchers behind the development of a potential universal coronavirus vaccine. Funded by MRC, Dr Marks has also founded Whatisbiotechnology.org (WiB), a free online educational and public engagement platform that brings together the stories of the people, places and science behind biotechnology and medicine.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology with honorary affiliations to University College London and University of Cambridge, in 2015 Lara published the book The Lock and Key of Medicine: Monoclonal antibodies and the transformation of healthcare (Yale University Press). In August 2020 this book was listed in The Guardian by Mark Honigsbaum as among the top best books on medical breakthroughs alongside that of James Watson's memoir 'The Double Helix' and Rebecca Skloot's 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'.