About Us
Registered charity number: 1038170 Registered company number: 2850118
Professor Anthony Campbell MA PhD FLS FRSA
Tony is one of life’s genuine enthusiasts. As well as being Scientific Director of the Darwin Centre, he is Professor in the Welsh School of Pharmacy, at Cardiff University. He obtained a first class degree in Natural Sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1967, and a PhD in Biochemistry in 1971. He is now an internationally acclaimed biochemist, a world expert in the science of lactose and food intolerance, and in animals that make light – bioluminescence. The technology he invented, as a result of curiosity about how a luminous British jelly fish produces its flash, is now used in several 100 million clinical tests per year. He has published over 200 scientific papers, 8 books, including a recipe book for people suffering from lactose intolerance (see http://www.welstonpress.com/), and has several patents being exploited world-wide. This technology received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education in 1998, and was selected in 2006 by Universities UK in their Eureka project as one of the 100 most important discoveries and inventions from UK Universities in the past 50 years. He is passionate about communicating cutting edge science to young people and the public, founding the Darwin Centre in 1994, and the highly acclaimed Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival in 2000. In 2009, year he gave 35 Darwin lectures as part of Darwin200. He gives lectures regularly to schools and the public, and runs hunts for glow-worms and other creatures that glow in the dark.
Email: campbellak@cf.ac.uk
History of the Darwin Centre
The Darwin Centre for Biology and Medicine was established by Professor Anthony (Tony) Campbell in Cardiff in 1993. It moved to Pembrokeshire in 1999, in anticipation of the Millennium Festival.
The Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival was created in 2000 as a product of its parent organisation, The Darwin Centre for Biology and Medicine. The Darwin Centre was established in Cardiff in 1993 to increase the public understanding of science and health, through a number of programmes. The Festival was launched in Pembrokeshire and has developed strong links with local and regional organisations. Its annual programme is designed to engage people with both applied and theoretical science by exciting their curiosity and enabling them to make discoveries:
- Educational programme for schools that links with the National Curriculum in Wales:
- Road shows of hands-on science taken into schools
- Investigative science projects leading to CREST awards for science
- Post-16 lectures
- Community science programme
- A life long learning programme targeted at people in areas of social exclusion and rural remoteness
- Field events, workshops and projects leading to CREST awards for science.
- Field events throughout the spring and summer
- Interactive family days
- Public lectures on cutting edge science by visiting national and international scientist
- Scientific conferences for scientists, teachers, students, and members of the public
The Darwin Centre is based in Pembrokeshire College, and has laboratory and seminar facilities at Milford Haven Docks.
Aims of the Darwin Centre
The Darwin Centre was established to excite young people about science, particularly at the cutting edge, and provide a vehicle for professional scientists and naturalists to engage with the public. Since moving to Pembrokeshire, a major objective has been to contribute to the educational and ecological programmes in West Wales, and Wales as a whole. The Darwin Centre was also established to encourage entrepreneurship, and to engage with local industry. A long term aim was to establish Sabbatical Cymru, an initiative to attract top international scientists, teachers, students and entrepreneurs into Wales, and particularly Pembrokeshire, to interact with our local talent.
The strategy to achieve these aims has been:
- School events
- Projects for school and other students through the CREST scheme
- Public and school lectures
- Workshops
- Natural History events around Pembrokeshire
- Medical fayres and lectures
- Arts and religion events
- The development of a research programme in Pembrokeshire
A key feature has been to arouse curiosity about nature, and then to show how cutting edge science has revealed the mechanisms that explain how life survives, develops and evolves on our planet.
In 1999 Professor Tony Campbell and David Lort Philips, two of the Directors of the Darwin Centre, were successful in obtaining a £21,000 grant from the Millennium, Commission to run the first Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival as part of the UK’s Millennium Festival. A new Board of Directors was set up with major stake holders from Pembrokeshire, under the Chairmanship of Robin Lewis. Two research assistants were appointed, based at the Welston Court Science Centre, set up by Professor Campbell and his wife Dr Stephanie Matthews in 1996.
The first Pembrokeshire Darwin Science Festival was a great success, throughout the year involving:
- A series of lecture-demonstrations named after key famous scientists
- Erasmus Darwin – the polymath lecture (Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe)
- Charles Darwin – the exploration lecture (Dr Solene Morris, curator of Down House)
- Philip Gosse – the naturalist lecture
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel – the invention lecture
- Alfred Russel Wallace – the science and society lecture (?)
These were held in various halls in Pembrokeshire
- Several natural history events, including the Great Millennium Glow-worm hunt with BBC Wales, involving night trips and BBC interviews
- A medical fayre at the Queen’s Hall, Narberth, with a lecture on heart disease by Professor Andrew Henderson, Cardiff.
- School visits and events
- Student CREST projects
- Science workshops run by Valerie Morse, including extracting DNA and how genetic engineering works, attended by people from 8 to 80 years old!
- A science theatre production – Not the nine o’clock clinic performed at the Torch theatre in Milford Haven
- A debate on genetic engineering at the Torch theatre in Milford Haven
- A debate in science and religion in the hall of St Mary’s Church, Tenby, including Dr Rowen Williams, then Archbishop of Wales elect, soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury. In the Evensong that followed, Dr Williams began his sermon with his now famous declaration ‘We should thank God for the gift of Darwin, for the insights he has given us into God’s natural world’.
A motto was established in the tradition of Erasmus and Charles Darwin.
‘Curiosity inspires, discovery reveals’
Darwin Research
The Darwin Research programme is focussed on developing marine organisms in Pembrokeshire, and around the Welsh coast, as a model for monitoring the effects of climate change, global warming and environmental changes on the marine ecosystem. Milford Haven estuary has been selected as one of the best ecosystems in Europe to achieve this. A further aim is seek out marine organisms that have potential applications in biology and medicine, either as model systems for investigating physiological and pathological mechanisms, or as a source of new materials, such as pharmaceuticals. These would have long term economic potential, in line with the pioneering work of Professor Campbell on bioluminescence.
Initially a laboratory was set up by Professor Campbell at the Welston Court Science Centre, and then moved to Pembrokeshire College, set up by Valerie Morse. She has now moved this to a facility near the quayside at Milford Haven. Boards have been made to collect marine animals from 10-20 feet down, for further study. The initial focus has been bioluminescence, particularly in coelenterates such as Obelia. Several good sites have been identified for monitoring the bioluminescence and fluorescence of these animals. Valerie Morse is registered as our first PhD student with Cardiff University, with Professor Campbell and Dr Ken Wann as supervisors. Several novel findings have already been made, including the value of using cutting edge technologies such as DNA and fluorescence as a crucial addition to conventional taxonomy in identifying definitively particular species. A culture system is being developed to answer one of the key questions about the luminous animals – what is the source of the substance that produces their light?
Four cutting edge technologies have been set up:
- DNA gel electrophoresis with potential for PCR amplification
- Fluorescence microscopy
- Chemiluminescence detection and analysis
- Bioluminescence imaging and software analysis
A fascinating discovery is that the location of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) in Obelia is a very good indicator for species identification. Many mistakes have been made previously in the literature and Pembrokeshire databases, which have not had access to this technology. A further exciting application of this bioluminescence has been to develop it as a model for the evolution of enzymes, a study that quite surprisingly is leading to a new clinical test in managing lactose and food intolerance, and potentially diabetes. A major aim now is to develop quantification of the bioluminescence and fluorescence of Obelia as a monitor for the long term effects of climate change and global warming on the marine ecosystem.
In 2002/3 the Darwin Centre commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the possibility of establishing a centre for marine science research and education with sabbatical facilities for visiting scientists in Pembrokeshire. The result was a Ten Year Development plan to enable the Darwin Centre to work towards this aim.
Since 2005 The Darwin Experience (which is the educational and public engagement arm of the Darwin Centre) has been developing an educational programme for schools and the community. The programme is sponsored by Dragon LNG, Waterston. During the 5 years Dragon LNG have contributed £250,000.00 to education in Pembrokeshire with a commitment to raise funding to £69,500.00 per annum. The Darwin Experience is pressing forward with innovative curriculum based activities through cutting edge science and sustainability issues. The programme is recognised by the local education authority as well as Her Majesties Inspectors of Schools. Recent inspections showing evidence that collaboration with the Darwin Experience can factor in attaining grade one results in science.
The Research, Educational and Engagement elements of the Darwin Centre work in harmony to open access to top class science to everyone.
Anthony K Campbell, Professor, School of Pharmacy, Cardiff University and Scientific Director of the Darwin Centre.
Marten Lewis, Manager of the Darwin Centre
Valerie Morse, Research Officer of the Darwin Centre
