Tim Hunt

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Sir Richard Timothy Hunt (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist.

Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for their discovery of protein molecules that regulate cell divisions.

Hunt discovered cyclin, a protein that cyclically aggregates and depletes during cell division cycles in fertilized sea urchin eggs in the early 1980s.

Early life and education

Hunt was born in Neston, Cheshire, on 19 February 1943, to Richard William Hunt, a lecturer in palaeography, and Kit Rowland, the daughter of a timber merchant. Hunt discovered his father was at Bush House, then the BBC World Service radio's headquarters, most likely in intelligence, but it is unknown what he did not know. Richard Bodleian Library Keeper of the Western Manuscripts, 1945, and the family moved to Oxford. Hunt was accepted into the Dragon School, where he first showed an interest in biology due to his German teacher, Gerd Sommerhoff, at the age of eight. He went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where the science awards now bear his name, gaining even more interest in science and research fields such as chemistry and zoology.

He was accepted into Clare College, Cambridge, to study Natural Sciences, graduating in 1964 and immediately starting work in Asher Korner's lab Department of Biochemistry. Louis Reichardt and Tony Hunter were among scientists who worked there. Vernon Ingram's 1965 lecture on haemoglobin synthesis piqued his interest, and he begged Irving London, a Greek scholar and geneticist, to join his laboratory at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who lived from July to October 1966. Asher Korner supervised his PhD, which was based on haemoglobin synthesis in intact rabbit reticulocytes (immature red blood cells) and was granted in 1968.

Personal life

Hunt is married to Mary Collins, the immunologist who is provost of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Two children live with the couple.

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Career and research

Hunt returned to London to work with Nechama Kosower, her husband Edward Kosower, and Ellie Ehrenfeld after his PhD. They discovered that tiny amounts of glutathione stymied protein synthesis in reticulocytes, and that tiny amounts of RNA killed the whole process. He resumed work with Tony Hunter and Richard Jackson, who had discovered the RNA strand that was used to start haemoglobin synthesis. The team discovered at least two other chemicals that act as inhibitors after three to four years.

Hunt spent summers at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, which was popular among scientists for its advanced summer programs, and, in particular, among those interested in mitosis research. Amongst the reefs and fishing docks, the location had a ready supply of surf clams and sea urchins, and it was these invertebrates that were particularly useful for embryogenesis research because the embryos were simply grown with filtered sea water, and microscopic analysis was facilitated by the transparency of the embryo cells.

It was at Woods Hole in 1982, when he first discovered the cyclin molecule using the sea urchin (Arbacia punctulata) egg as his model organism. Hunt, a keen cyclist, rated the protein based on his observation of the hormone's cycles.

Cyclins are proteins that play a vital role in regulating the cell division cycle. After the eggs are fertilised and rise in levels during interphase, Hunt found that cyclins are beginning to be synthesized, but in the middle of mitosis in each cell division, they disappear very quickly. In vertebrate cells, cyclins are also present, regulating the cell cycle, according to Paul. Cyins bind and promote a family of protein kinases, one of which has been identified as a key cell cycle regulator by Paul Nurse. Cell division cyclins are essential to all living organisms (excluding bacteria), and thus the investigation of the process in simple organisms helps to determine tumor formation in humans.

He began working at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, later known as the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in the United Kingdom, where his research was focused on discovering what makes cell go cancerous, i.e. proliferates uncontrollably, when the usual inhibitory signals were switched off. Hunt worked at the Clare Hall Laboratories until the end of 2010 and is now an Emeritus Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He is a member of the Campaign for Science and Engineering's Advisory Council. He has served on the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, as well as other components. Hunt joined the Academic Advisory Board of the Austrian think tank Academia Superior, Institute for Future Studies, in 2010.

Hunt is a well-known colleague and mentor in the research community. Hugh Pelham and Jonathon Pines have been mentored by Hugh Pelham and Jonathon Pines throughout his career.

Hunt is a lifelong advocate for scientific inquiry in addition to his scientific contributions. Since winning the Nobel Prize in 2001, he spent a large portion of his time traveling the world, speaking to both national and specialist audiences. He gave his personal account of the inquiry, stressing the importance of having fun and being lucky. When power is given to young people, science benefits, as well as science.

Hunt became the object of an online shaming movement in June 2015 after remarks he made at a science journalism conference were misconstrued as sexist. The heat of the scandal prompted him to resign from several key research and policy positions, including the European Research Council, as well as a temporary withdrawal from public life and professional work.

Hunt was back in lecture by 2017. In June, he travelled to Germany with the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative. He spoke at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's second Molecular Frontiers Symposium in October. In December, he delivered the inaugural lecture at the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples for the Year of Research. He returned to Lindau in 2018. He appeared in the fourth Nobel Prize Dialogue in Tokyo in March 2019, on the theme of ageing.

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