Clare Hall 60th Anniversary Tanner and Ashby Lectures 2026
Clare Hall is pleased to welcome Professor David Nirenberg and Professor Y.M. Dennis Lo as speakers for the special 60th Anniversary Tanner and Ashby Lectures, on Thursday 16 April 2026, from 17.00 in the Robinson Auditorium.
About the Tanner Lecture – ‘What does history have to do with prophecy? Past and Future in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism’
Professor David Nirenberg
Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, USA
Our political vocabulary, even at its most secular, is filled with the sense that history has a direction, that its “progress” reveals truths (“the judgement of history,” “the right side of history,” “the arc of history”). That conviction has animated movements of diverse ideological stripes—liberal, Marxist, fascist and many others—and continues to do so today. Why has so much of humanity come to share a prophetic sense of history, and at what cost? Those are the questions of this lecture, which will begin with the twentieth century and its World Wars, and then seek connections with ancient and medieval debates between Christians, Muslims, and Jews over the meaning of history.
About the Ashby Lecture – ‘Creating Paradigm Shifts in Medical Diagnostics’
Professor Y. M. Dennis Lo
Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
The invasive sampling of tissues within the body is an established approach in many branches of medicine. Examples include amniocentesis for prenatal testing, and biopsy of tumour tissues in oncology. In this lecture, a non-invasive approach, so-called “liquid biopsy”, will be discussed. My journey in this field started with development of a non-invasive approach for obtaining fetal DNA for prenatal testing. This approach was made possible through my discovery of the presence of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal blood in 1997. This discovery has now been translated into a non-invasive platform for testing fetal chromosomal disorders that have now been used by over 100 million pregnant women around the world. I have also developed a similar approach for the detection, monitoring and prognostication of multiple types of cancer. Liquid biopsy thus provides a non-invasive window into our health.
Lecture tickets are now available and can be reserved here (for in-person attendance), and here (for Zoom attendance only). We are expecting a full audience for this exciting event, and there are limited spots available. Please book ASAP to ensure that you will be able to attend!
*If you have already received and RSVP’d to the event invitation, there is no need to complete another form.
If you have any queries about the event or your registration, please contact Hilal, our College Events and Fellowship Manager, at college.administrator@clarehall.cam.ac.uk.