There are identifiable turning points in any struggle for equality and opportunity and as far as women scientists in the UK are concerned one such moment occurred in 1991. Dr Nancy Lane was asked to chair the Working Party on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology for the Governmentís Cabinet Office. They eventually published the landmark report The Rising Tide in 1994.

Born in Canada, she took her D.Phil. at Oxford University after which she carried out post-doctoral research in the USA, first at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and then in Yale University's Biology Department.

Returning to the UK she joined a neurobiological research unit in the Zoology Department of Cambridge University where she now is a senior research associate. She is an Official Fellow of Girton College, where she is also a lecturer in cell biology.

Her work includes over 200 papers in the fields of cellular and neurobiology and she has earned awards and academic titles from all over the world. She has held visiting professorships at a variety of universities in Europe and South America.

She was awarded an OBE in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to science. Nancy's ability to see the wider context of science means that she is asked to sit on a variety of national education committees. Her expertise makes her in demand internationally. As a Non-Executive Director for international health care company Smith and Nephew plc, she chairs an external Scientific Advisory Panel. Nancy has lectured widely on issues related to the problems confronting women scientists and she is a member of UNESCO's Scientific Committee for Women in Science and Technology. Nancy is the President of the Institute of Biology.