Friday 24 July 2009 afternoon ceremony

Sir Denis Pereira Gray
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

Sir Denis Pereira Gray (DSc)

Sir Denis Pereira Gray worked for 38 years in the St Leonard’s Medical Practice Exeter, following his father and grandfather. He has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Hunterian Society, London, the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of Public Health, and Honorary Doctorates by three British universities.

He established the first postgraduate university department of general practice in Europe at the University of Exeter and was later appointed Professor and Director of the Exeter University Postgraduate Medical School, serving for ten years. He was twice elected by the registered medical practitioners in England to the General Medical Council. He has written/edited four books and has had over 200 articles published in scientific medical journals.

He was elected Chairman of Council and later President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Chairman of the JCPTPGP a medical regulatory body, and Chairman of the Trustees of the Nuffield Trust. He was knighted for services to quality assurance in medicine.

Sir Denis is the only General Practitioner ever elected Chairman of the Academy of the Medical Royal Colleges of Great Britain and Ireland. He is one of 23 British doctors who have been elected to the Institute of Medicine, of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, USA.

He is currently an Assessor for the Queen’s Award for Higher and Further Education, Patron of the National Association for Patient Participation, and President of the children’s charity, What About the Children?

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (DSc)

Sir Leszek was born in 1951 in Cardiff of Polish parents who arrived in the UK in 1946 and still live in the city. He attended Cardiff High School for Boys and then went on to study at the Welsh National School of Medicine, where he was an outstanding student, achieving multiple distinctions and the ‘Gold Medal’ award.

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz PhD, FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, has been Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council since October 2007. Prior to the MRC, Sir Leszek was Deputy Rector at Imperial College London. He was knighted in 2001 for his research into developing vaccines, including a vaccine to prevent the development of cervical cancer.

A physician by training, Sir Leszek specialises in viral immunology, infectious diseases, cell mediated immunity, virus associated malignancy and vaccine development.

He has held a number of high-profile posts including governor of the Wellcome Trust, chair of the HEFCE RAE Main Panel A, council member of Cancer Research UK and trustee of the Nuffield Trust.

Sir Leszek was a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and is a Fellow of Cardiff University. He holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Southampton and Hull.

He is married to Gwenllian, has two daughters and enjoys rugby, cricket and painting in oils.