Apart from their universally-recognised
genius, Nobel Prize winners are an indefinable lot. Sir Winston
Churchill's writings were fuelled by brandy, cigars and frequent
cat naps. Albert Einstein's wardrobe contained identical sets of
clothes, freeing the great man's brain from having to decide what
to wear. Marie Curie almost certainly died after being exposed to
the healing radiation which she laboured for years to understand.
Sir Paul Nurse,
Joint Director General of Cancer Research UK and winner, together
with fellow Britain Tim Hunt and the American Leland Hartwell, of
the 2001 Medicine Prize, is every bit as quirky as his eminent predecessors.
THE "DAVID
BECKHAM OF SCIENCE"
In his fifties,
he is an unlikely-looking scientist. Eschewing the lab coat and
slide-rule image, his greying hair gives him the aura of an ageing
rock star (he looks uncannily like the actor Robin Williams) and
he enjoys a beer down the pub with his colleagues. He is, according
to the Sun, "the David Beckham of science".
Asked what he
would do with his share of the million dollar prize-money, he declared,
"I know it's the male menopause, but I love my Kawasaki motorbike.
I'm planning to buy an even bigger one." But, when he is not
piloting a glider, indulging his love of astronomy or tearing up
the tarmac, Sir Paul is at the very front line of the fight against
one of the world's biggest killers, cancer.
His work, which
started with postgraduate experiments on yeast and led to the discovery
of the gene which controls cell division, has brought him a world-wide
reputation second to none, but his background is anything but glamorous.
Born in Norwich,
he was brought up in Neasden, north London. An eighth birthday present
of a telescope began his fascination with science and he graduated
in Biology from Birmingham University, the first of his family to
go to university.
"I could
have gone into industry and been a multi-millionaire by now",
Sir Paul once admitted, "but I wanted to be at the cutting
edge of research, helping to save lives without the constraint of
the market."
CHARITY SHOP
CHIC
Thanks to his
ground-breaking research, mainly conducted in the 1980s, he joined
the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) in 1996, doubling its funding
in five years. Putting his money where his mouth his, he once gave
a speech at a conference dressed in a 1970s-style blue corduroy
suit which he had just bought from an ICRF shop.
Early in 2002
the ICRF and The Cancer Research Fund joined forces, becoming Cancer
Research UK. Like his fellow Joint Director, Prof Gordon McVie,
Sir Paul Nurse is a heavy hitter, unafraid of courting controversy.
In this spirit,
he has lambasted Margaret Thatcher for doing "a good job of
ruining British science", and has also lent strong support
to the campaign to clone human embryos for stem cell research.
