The Lion's Face

Elena Langer was born in Moscow and is now based in London. After graduating from the Gnessin Music College where she majored in musicology and piano, she entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory to study composition. In 1999 Elena moved to London to complete her degrees, first at the Royal College of Music (MMus), and then at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2002 and 2003 she was a composer-in-residence at the Almeida Theatre, London.

Elena has written compositions in diverse genres, including opera and multimedia, orchestral, chamber and choral works, and has received commissions and performances from international ensembles, festivals and organisations, including The Royal Opera House's ROH2, Zurich Opera (Switzerland), and Carnegie Hall. Some of her works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC World Service, Radio Echo of Moscow and Dutch Radio.

Glyn Maxwell was born in 1962 in Welwyn Garden City, England. He read English at the University of Oxford and won a scholarship to Boston University where he studied the poetry and drama courses taught by Derek Walcott. He moved to the USA in 1996, teaching first at Amherst College, Massachusetts, then at Columbia University and The New School in New York City. In 1997 he was awarded the E M Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was appointed Poetry Editor at the 'New Republic' in 2001, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

His first book of poetry, 'Tale of the Mayor's Son', was published in 1990. 'Out of the Rain' (1992) won a Somerset Maugham Award, and 'Rest for the Wicked' (1995) was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Poetry Award and the T S Eliot Prize. 'The Breakage' (1998) was shortlisted for both the T S Eliot and the Forward Poetry (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) Prizes.

He has written a number of plays, several of which have been performed professionally, including 'Broken Journey' (which was a 'Time Out' Critics' Choice), 'The Lifeblood', 'Anyroad' and 'The Only Girl in the World'. His radio play, 'Childminders', was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2002. His recent theatre work includes 'The Lifeblood', a play about the last few days of Queen Mary's life, his verse drama one-person show, 'Best Man's Speech', and 'The Forever Waltz', which premiered in New York in 2005. He also writes opera libretti, including 'The Girl of Sand' for the Almeida Theatre, in collaboration with the composer Elena Langer, and a libretto based on Euripides' 'The Birds', composed by Ed Hughes for The Opera Group, performed at the City of London Festival 2005.

Simon Lovestone is Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), King's College London (KCL) and Director of the National Institute for Health Research's Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and IoP KCL. His research interests concentrate on understanding the molecular and cellular events that take place in the brain and especially the role of tau and intracellular signalling in Alzheimer's disease, together with the genetics and proteomics of late-onset Alzheimer's. His research team are also looking for biomarkers of this and other neuropsychiatric diseases. In addition to heading a multidisciplinary old age psychiatry clinical team he has clinical interests in the dementias and in genetic counselling.

The Identity Project is a nine-month season of activity from the Wellcome Trust, including a major exhibition and diverse events presented in Wellcome Collection, plus exhibitions, live events and films at other venues across the UK.

The Wellcome Trust is a global charity dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.