Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Paul Nurse in Conversation
Event details
York Ideas Lecture
Join Nobel Prize winner and author of What is Life?, Sir Paul Nurse in conversation with The Times Science Editor, Tom Whipple, as they discuss Sir Paul's outstanding career in science which this year sees him become President of the prestigious Royal Society for the second time.
About the speakers
Sir Paul Nurse OM CH FRS, Director, Francis Crick Institute is a geneticist and cell biologist who works on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled. His major work has been on the cyclin dependent protein kinases and how they regulate cell reproduction.
He is Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, Chancellor of the University of Bristol, and has served as President of the Royal Society, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK and President of Rockefeller University.
He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and has received the Albert Lasker Award, the Gairdner Award, the Louis Jeantet Prize and the Royal Society’s Royal and Copley Medals. He was knighted in 1999 made a Companion of Honour and awarded the Order of Merit in 2022 for services to science and medicine in the UK and abroad, received the Legion d’honneur in 2003 from France, and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2018 from Japan.
He served for 15 years on the UK Council of Science and Technology, advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and was a Chief Scientific Advisor for the European Union.
In 2020 he wrote “What is Life” which has been published in 22 countries. Paul flies gliders and vintage aeroplanes and has been a qualified bush pilot. He also likes the theatre, hill-walking, going to museums and art galleries, and running very slowly.
Tom Whipple is science editor at The Times. He has been covering science for the paper since 2012. He writes news, features, reviews and commentary across the paper, as well as appearing regularly on Times Radio. Tom joined The Times shortly after graduating with a degree in mathematics. As well as The Times, he has written for the Guardian and The Economist. He was named science journalist of the year for his coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic.