On February 5th, 2025, over 140 Rockefeller community members gathered in the Great Hall to hear former Rockefeller University President Sir Paul Nurse speak about his recent book What is Life? Five Great Ideas In Biology. The insightful lecture was followed by a fruitful Q&A session and a reception in the Markus Library’s Main Reading Room.
A recording of the lecture can be accessed here. What is Life? is available for Tri-I members to borrow at the Markus Library.
Sir Paul Nurse (PhD, OM, CH, FMedSci, FRS) 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 Rockefeller President Emeritus, and has served as President of the Royal Society, and as Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK. 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.
