Researcher

Paul Nurse

Profile

Paul Nurse is a British geneticist and cell biologist, Director of The Francis Crick Institute, who received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt for discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle. Nurse's pivotal contribution was the identification and cloning of the cdc2 gene in fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) as a master regulator of the cell cycle, encoding a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK). He demonstrated that the human homolog CDK1 could functionally substitute for yeast cdc2, proving that cell cycle control is universally conserved across eukaryotes. This discovery laid the groundwork for CDK inhibitors, which are now blockbuster cancer drugs; multiple CDK4/6 inhibitors (palbociclib, ribociclib, abemaciclib) are approved for breast cancer treatment, generating billions in annual revenue. Nurse continues as an influential figure in British science policy and continues laboratory research on cell cycle and cell size regulation. His work is foundational for all pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms working in oncology, as dysregulation of CDKs is a near-universal feature of cancer.

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