Dame Sally is the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England and the first woman to fill this post. She is a haematologist with specialist research interest in sickle cell disease. In her advisory post she guides government decisions on diverse subjects such as superbugs, drug trials and obesity. Her recent book The Drugs Don’t Work outlines a frightening vision of the world once antibiotics stop being effective . Resistance to our current range of antibiotics is the new inconvenient truth. Her talk will be a call to action, to take responsibility now, before the bugs fight back.