The SBNS are excited to be running several FREE public engagement events surrounding our 100 year anniversary of the Society. Come along and join us by booking a ticket, through the link below, for the event that you would like to attend.
Please note: you need to book a ticket for these events even if you have already booked to attend the Meeting as places are limited.
Monday 12th October 2026 5-7pm
Teach Yourself Brain Surgery
Brains in Action: A 100-Year Celebration of Life-Saving Neurosurgery
Join us for a unique, high-energy evening as the Society of British Neurological Surgeons marks its 100th anniversary with an unforgettable, hands-on adventure into the world of the brain!
Hosted by TV favourite Dr Alex Van Tulleken (Operation Ouch!), this special event invites curious minds of all ages to step into the shoes of real-life lifesavers. Meet the incredible Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance team and discover what happens in those critical first moments after a serious head injury — with the chance to get involved yourself and try out vital emergency skills.
Then, head into the operating theatre to explore how neurosurgeons perform life-saving brain surgery. From learning how surgeons access the brain to taking part in a simulated craniotomy, this is a rare opportunity to get hands-on with the science and skill behind modern medicine.
Packed with live demonstrations, audience participation, and plenty of wow moments, this inspiring evening celebrates a century of innovation while sparking the next generation of scientists, doctors, and problem-solvers.
Get ready to scrub in, think fast, and discover the amazing world inside your head!
QEII Conference Centre
Churchill Suite
Broad Santuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3EE
Tuesday 13th October 2026 - 5:45-6:45pm
Henry Marsh - retired neurosurgeon and renowned author
Henry Marsh worked at AMH/St George’s until 2015. He was one of the pioneers of awake craniotomy for gliomas. His work has been the subject of two major BBC documentaries – “Your Life in their Hands” in 2003 and “The English Surgeon” in 2009 which won an Emmy. His book Do No Harm, published in 2014, became an international best seller and has been translated into 37 languages. The book won both the Sky Arts South Bank Show 2015 Award for Literature and the PEN Ackerley Prize. His two subsequent books, “Admissions” and “And Finally” have both been Sunday Times best sellers.
He has worked in Ukraine since 1992.
In 2017 he was awarded the Times’ William Howard Russell Award for non-fiction and the Clement Price Thomas Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons in 2023.
He was made a CBE by HM the Queen in 2010.
Jamie MoCrazy - from X Games to ICU — Climbing Alternative Peaks After Trauma
Jamie MoCrazy is a former professional freestyle skier who made history as the first woman to land a double backflip at X Games. At the height of her career, Jamie suffered a life-threatening traumatic brain injury at the Freestyle Skiing World Tour Finals in 2015, leaving her in a coma with a fatality report written.
When Jamie arrived at Vancouver General Hospital, she became the first individual in North America to receive a multi model monitoring system developed in Cambridge, England.
Jamie survived—but survival was only the beginning. She had to relearn how to walk, speak, and regain cognitive function while rebuilding her identity and purpose from the ground up. Jamie went from being paralyzed in a coma to climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest freestanding mountain in the world!
Today, Jamie is a globally recognized keynote speaker, documentary filmmaker, and Founder & CEO of the MoCrazy Strong Brain Injury Foundation. Jamie’s story shows how TBI research and progression in England can positively affect people around the world.
QEII Conference Centre
Churchill Suite
Broad Santuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3EE
Wednesday 14th October 2026 - 5:30-6:40pm
5:30 - 6:30 - How to Protect Your Brain - Meet the Experts
Chaired By Prof. Mark Wilson OBE and Katie Gilkes
Dr Claire Baker - Helmet Safety
Dr Claire Baker
Schmidt AI for Science Research Fellow
Dyson School of Design Engineering / Imperial-X
Imperial College London
Dr Claire Baker is a Schmidt AI for Science Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Her work explores how biomechanics-informed sensing in emergency medicine can support time-critical trauma response, with a focus on post-crash care and brain injury. Her PhD demonstrated the feasibility of using vehicle-based sensing to predict brain injury outcomes in road traffic collisions. Her current research interests include data-driven trauma biomechanics to optimise the safety of road users and the emergency medical response. In her Schmidt AI for Science fellowship, she combines smartphone and vehicle sensor data with AI, computational digital twin environments, and trauma biomechanics to predict time-critical injuries in road traffic collisions. She has a strong interest in translating her research to inform policy, including ISO standards for vehicle-based injury prediction and playing a key role in the team that developed the HIPER (Helmet Impact Protection Effectiveness Rating) programme which won the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award recognising its societal impact.
Jean Adams - Diet and the Brain
Jean Adams is a Professor of Diet and Public Health at the University of Cambridge. Her work explores how the environment, in its widest sense, influences what people eat and how we can change the environment to support people to eat better. Recent work has explored changing food prices, restricting food advertising, changing what food shops are available on the high street and providing calorie counts on restaurant menus. Jean is a member of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, she’s given evidence to parliamentary committees and her work has been cited in many policy documents.
Georgia Turner - Social Media and the Brain
Georgia Turner
Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Cambridge
Georgia Turner is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, where she applies her background in psychology and neuroscience to understand the impact of digital technology use on young people’s mental health. Georgia recently completed her PhD at Cambridge, where she applied quantitative methods from psychology to real-world social media and smartphone data. She found that social media ‘Likes’ engage the same reward-pursuing mechanisms as those identified in dopamine-stimulating animal laboratory experiments, and also identified that there is substantial heterogeneity among adolescents who believe they are addicted to social media. Previously, she completed a Masters in neuroscience at UCL, London and Sorbonne, Paris, and an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Philosophy at Cambridge.
6:30 - 6:40 - Music, Brain Surgery and Patient-Centred Care
Deep Brain Stimulation – brain surgery while awake!
Meet the surgeon and the patient:
Prof Keyoumars Ashkan MBE and Denise Bacon
Professor Ashkan is the professor of neurosurgery at School of Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience as well as professor in School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London. He is the lead for Functional and Oncological Neurosurgery at King's College Hospital and the Lead for King’s Research Governance and Feasibility Group. He is a council member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, the Immediate Past President of the British Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery and the past chairman of the Surgical Group of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. Prof Ashkan’s main clinical and research interest include deep brain stimulation, basal ganglia anatomy and physiology, intra-operative imaging and physiology, image guided surgery, immunotherapy, brain tumour genomics, minimally invasive neurosurgery, radiosurgery, new and novel therapies and patient reported outcome measures. He has published over 800 full papers, abstracts and book chapters. In 2025 he was honoured with an MBE by the King for services to neurosurgery.
QEII Conference Centre
Churchill Suite
Broad Santuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3EE
Thursday 15th October 2026 - 5:00-5:40pm
Gemini Untwined
Hear the remarkable story of conjoined twins who were successfully separated at birth through pioneering surgery. Meet the surgeons Prof Owase Jeelani and Prof. Richard Hayward and the teenage twins, Rital and Rita Gaboura.
To find out more about the work of Gemini Untwined and the twins visit https://geminiuntwined.org/
Rita and Rital
Rital and Ritag were born in Sudan as craniopagus twins, joined at the head and sharing a single skull, scalp, and cerebral blood supply, while having separate brains. Coming from a family of doctors, their parents had extensively researched their condition before contacting the surgical team. The twins arrived in the UK on the 11th of April 2011 and underwent a series of four complex operations, beginning on the 9th of May, with their final separation completed on the 15th of August 2011.
The staged procedures required meticulous separation of shared membranes and blood vessels, including vessels supplying Rital’s brain that were dependent on Ritag’s circulation. As Ritag developed life-threatening organ failure, the surgical team faced the urgent challenge of balancing the survival of both twins. Despite the significant risks discussed with their parents, including death and neurological complications, both girls made a remarkable recovery following separation. They were discharged soon afterwards and have gone on to lead happy and fulfilling lives.
Owase Jeelani
Professor Owase Jeelani is the lead neurosurgeon for the successful separation of 9 sets of Craniopagus twins between 2011 and 2026. This constitutes the largest global experience of such cases.
He is a Professor of Paediatric Neurosurgery at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) and has worked there since 2000. He was the Head of Department of Neurosurgery from 2012-2018 and is currently the Head of Department of Craniofacial Surgery. Owase’s specialist areas of interest are craniopagus twins, craniofacial surgery, neuro-oncology and CSF and ICP pathologies.
Besides his surgical degrees, he holds an MPhil in Medical Law from the University of Glasgow and an MBA from INSEAD. He is a director of the FaceValue research programme at UCL ICH, with a research focus of engineering and AI prediction modelling to design bespoke cranial implants and make surgery safer and more effective. He is the inventor of CranioExpandTM, a bespoke internal cranial distractor system.
Owase was named in ‘The Times’ top 100 surgeons in the UK in 2011 and the top 100 children’s doctors in 2012 and was awarded an MBE for services to paediatric neurosurgery and global child health in the Kings Birthday Honours List in 2025.
Richard Hayward
Professor Richard Hayward was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1981 and became Professor of paediatric neurosurgery (UCL) in 2004. He was a founding member of the hospital’s multidisciplinary craniofacial unit and has been involved in the separation of three pairs of craniopagus twins. He presently supervises a variety of paediatric neurosurgical and craniofacial research projects.
QEII Conference Centre
Churchill Suite
Broad Santuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3EE
