Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded for Cell Research

bigfatlamer writes: "The Nobel committee has awarded the Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Leland Hartwell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and Paul Nurse and Timothy Hunt both of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. The award was given for their seminal work on cell cycle control in yeast. Those of us who work in the field knew that it would only be a matter of time before these people won a Nobel."

good karma

[counsell]

I've only "interacted" with Paul Nurse in the flesh once. It was when I was studying in Oxford and he was Head of a Department where I was doing an undergraduate project. I asked him over the phone for an appointment. He invited me into his office and made time in a busy day to sit and talk with a complete nobody like me about what I should do with my scientific career. I really appreciated it and I've been rooting for him to win The Prize over the several years he's been tipped to get it.

Incidentally, I work at the Institute of Cancer Research in London ("the ICR"---not to be confused with "the ICRF") and am about to move to do more bioinformatics at the Genome Campus in Cambridge so I've visited the ICRF quite often over the past five years to meet up with bioinformatics scientists there. Most times I use the lifts (that's "elevators" to you colonials) Paul Nurse is posted the "winner" in their Health and Safety Department's "Hall of Shame" for workers caught eating and drinking most often in the labs.