Paul Nurse

Sir Paul Maxime Nurse ( born January 25, 1949 in Norwich, England ) is a British biochemist and Nobel laureate.

Life

Nurse was born on 25 January 1949 in England. After completing his school education, he studied at the Universities of Birmingham and East Anglia. After the Bachelor's degree in 1970 in Birmingham in 1973 they Ph.D. (East Anglia). He then worked as a researcher at the Universities of Bern, Edinburgh, Copenhagen and Sussex. 1987 Nurse followed the call of the University of Oxford, where he worked as a professor until 1993. He then moved to the Cancer Research Center ICRF (Imperial Cancer Research Fund ) in London, whose Director-General, he was in 1996. Since September 2003 he has been president of the Rockefeller University in New York. In 2010, he went to the Presidency of the Royal Society.

A scientific focus of Nurse is to understand the key biological components of the so-called cell cycle. Using genetic and molecular biological methods succeeded Nurse to make in yeast cells, the gene for one of these components, a cyclin-dependent kinase identified. Kinases are special enzymes, cyclins special, during cell growth phase proteins formed. Both play a key role in mitosis and thus also in the cell cycle. Nurse 's colleague R. Timothy Hunt could find out that connect the cyclins in the growth phase with the cyclin-dependent kinases. This activated process, the enzymes begin to connect certain proteins with phosphoric acid molecules. This process eventually leads to the synthesis phase, that is, there is a doubling of the genetic material.

The discoveries of Nurse and Hunt have fundamental importance for the understanding of what the role of the cyclins in the cell cycle. At the same time the research results open new perspectives for future treatment of cancer.

Awards

He became a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society, in 1992 the Wellcome Prize, 1995, the Royal Medal in 2005 and the Copley Medal awarded him in 1989. In 1992, he received a Gairdner Foundation International Award, 1996 Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award, the 1997 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize in 1998 and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. For his pioneering work he was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Hunt and the Americans Leland H. Hartwell. 2010 honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University awarded him. In 2013 he received the Albert Einstein World Award of Science.

Publications

• Paul Nurse: The Great Ideas Of Biology: The Romanes Lecture For 2003 ( Romanes Lecture ). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. ISBN 0-19-951897-1