Frances Rosemary Balkwill (born 1952) is an English scientist, Professor of Cancer Biology at Queen Mary University of London, and author of children's books about scientific topics.
She obtained a BSc in Cellular Pathology at the University of Bristol and a PhD on leukaemia cell biology[1] in the Medical Oncology Department at St Bartholomew's Hospital supervised by Gordon Hamilton Fairley.
For her first book on HIV and Aids, Staying Alive: Fighting HIV/AIDS (2002), Balkwill and Rolph travelled to South Africa to carry out research and to determine the educational needs of local communities.
19,000 free copies of the book were distributed throughout South Africa, funded by the publisher Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
[4] She was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize in 2005 "for her outstanding work in communicating the concepts, facts and fascination of science in a way that appeals to children of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities, while at the same time maintaining a distinguished research career".