Putting the history of medicine at the heart of the Science Museum: curating the new medicine galleries

This is a joint event with the Department of History.

Due to be completed in late 2019, the Science Museum’s new Medicine Galleries will transform the first floor of the museum, creating a magnificent new home for the medicine collections. Bringing together the extraordinary collections of Henry Wellcome and the Science Museum, this is the one of the most significant medicine collections in the world. The suite of five galleries will reveal personal stories about how our lives have been transformed by changes in medicine and health over the last 400 years. This lecture will reveal some insight into how one of the biggest projects in the museum’s history developed including some of the challenges - the size and scale of the project, its 25-year display life, encountering ethical and sensitive issues such as the history and legacy of the impact of thalidomide, which will be a case study for this lecture.

NB: There will be a drinks reception after the event.

Selina Hurley
Selina Hurley is Curator of Medicine and is Lead Curator for one of the five new permanent Medicine Galleries at the Science Museum focusing on the theme of medicine and therapeutics.

After completing degrees at the University of York and Imperial College, Selina has worked on numerous projects at the Science Museum including Climate Changing Stories (2012-2014), the contemporary science element of Mind Maps: Stories from Psychology (2014-2016), and the 50th anniversary display on the first human to human heart transplant (December 2017). She has recently co-edited and contributed to the forthcoming book Medicine Cabinet, and a forthcoming chapter in Medicine: An Imperfect Science.

To book please visit the Eventbrite booking page.