Paul Nurse

Sir Paul Maxime Nurse FRS FREng (born 25 January 1949), is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division (duplication) of cells in the cell cycle.

Early life and education

Nurse's mother went from London to Norwich, Norfolk and lived with relatives while awaiting Paul's birth in order to hide illegitimacy. For the rest of their lives his maternal grandmother pretended to be his mother and his mother pretended to be his sister. He was educated at Lyon Park school in Alperton and Harrow County Grammar School. His undergraduate applications were rejected by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex and York because he did not possess the required foreign language GCE. He was offered a place at the University of Birmingham on the condition that he take French classes in his first year. He received his BSc degree in biology in 1970 from the University of Birmingham and his PhD degree in 1973 from the University of East Anglia for research on Candida utilis.