Robert has two younger siblings: a sister, the artist Willow Winston, and a brother, Anthony.

[2] Winston attended firstly Salcombe Preparatory School until the age of 7, followed by Colet Court and St Paul's School, later graduating from The London Hospital Medical College in 1964 with a degree in medicine and surgery and achieved prominence as an expert in human fertility.

He joined the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (based at Hammersmith Hospital) as consultant and Reader in 1977.

After conducting research as Professor of Gynaecology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1980, he returned to the UK to run the IVF service set up at Hammersmith Hospital which pioneered various improvements in this technology.

As Professor of Fertility Studies at Hammersmith, Winston led the IVF team that pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to identify defects in human embryos, and published early work on gene expression in human embryos.

He performed the world's first fallopian tubal transplant in 1979 but this technology was later superseded by in vitro fertilisation.

Together with Alan Handyside in 1990, his research group pioneered the techniques of pre-implantation diagnosis, enabling screening of human embryos to prevent numerous genetic diseases.

Together with Carol Readhead of the California Institute of Technology, Winston researched male germ cell stem cells and methods for their genetic modification at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London.

As a traditional Jew with an orthodox background,[11] he also presented The Story of God, exploring the development of religious beliefs and the status of faith in a scientific age.

Winston's documentary Threads of Life won the international science film prize in Paris in 2005.

His BBC series Child Against All Odds explored ethical questions raised by IVF treatment.

[citation needed] Winston has made a number of claims regarding the impact of segregated cycle lanes on air quality and emissions in Central London.

[17] He is a member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, an advisory board created in 2019 and sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which works on ethical and innovative deployment of data-enabled technologies including artificial intelligence.