Salim Al-Gailani is a Assistant Professor at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), University of Cambridge, where he lectures and supervises in the history of medicine. After completing his PhD on the history of antenatal care in Britain, he joined the Wellcome Trust-funded ‘Generation to Reproduction’ Strategic Award at Cambridge as a Research Associate. He has also held a fellowship at the John Rylands Research Institute at the University of Manchester. Broadly interested in the histories of modern medicine, biomedical sciences and public health, his research has focused in particular on transformations in the experience and management of pregnancy and childbirth since the late nineteenth century.

His writing has also explored the visual and material and cultures of science and medicine, including toy chemistry sets, anatomical images and educational films. He is currently working on a book that examines the history of folic acid as a technology of pregnancy, with its implications beyond reproduction for the globalization of biomedical knowledge, the management of risk and the role of consumer activism in shaping public health policy. Salim is Director of Studies in HPS at St Edmund’s College.