Tim Hunt

Tim Hunt is a 'Principal Scientist' at Cancer Research UK, Clare Hall Laboratories, in South Mimms, Herts. Dr Hunt was born in 1943 and lived in Oxford until he was 18 years old, when he went up to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. He did his Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry on the topic of "The Synthesis of Haemoglobin". He spent almost 30 years altogether in Cambridge, mostly working on the control of protein synthesis, with spells in the USA; he was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1968-70 and he spent summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole from 1977 until 1985, both teaching and doing research. In 1982, he discovered cyclins, which turned out to be "Key Regulator(s) of the Cell Cycle", and led to a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 together with Lee Hartwell and Paul Nurse. Present research interests concern the control of entry into and exit from mitosis; the role of cyclin dependent protein kinases, their substrate specificity, and most recently an unexpected entry into the world of protein phosphatases.

Dr Hunt has helped write two books: together with Andrew Murray, many years ago, he wrote "The Cell Cycle: An Introduction", and with John Wilson composed "Molecular Biology of the Cell: A Problems Approach" to accompany the textbook by Alberts et al. The 'Problems' are approaching their 4th edition.

Tim Hunt's website