Tim Hunt
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Tim Hunt
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2001
Born: 19 February 1943, Neston, United Kingdom
Affiliation at the time of the award: Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
From the beginning organisms evolve from one cell, which divides and becomes new cells that in turn divide. Eventually different types of cells are formed with different roles. For an organism to function and develop normally, cell division has to occur at a suitable pace. Tim Hunt has helped to show how the cell cycle is controlled. Through studies of sea urchins in the beginning of the 1980s, he discovered proteins that are broken down during different phases of the cell cycle and that have important functions in its control.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
