44 new Fellows, 8 Foreign Members and 1 Honorary Fellow join that exclusive club that not even Baroness Greenfield can get into.

Each year, the RS elects up to 44 new Fellows who have made “a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science”.

The new intake includes several London-based scientists: Laurence Pearl and Michael Stratton of the Institute of Cancer Research; UCL’s Claudio Stern; and Christofer Toumazou from Imperial College.