Insights from

Nobel Laureates, for scientists everywhere

Tim Hunt

Tim Hunt

Tim Hunt is an emeritus ‘Principal Scientist’ at The Francis Crick Institute, London, and a visiting researcher at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan. He was born in 1943 and grew up in Oxford until moving to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences in 1961. He did his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry entitled “The Synthesis of Haemoglobin” (1968).

Dr Hunt spent almost 30 years based in Cambridge, at first working on the control of protein synthesis, with spells in the United States; he was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1968­–1970 and spent summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, from 1977 until 1985. In 1982, he discovered cyclins, which led to a share of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with Lee Hartwell and Paul Nurse, “for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle”.

Dr Hunt has written two books, “The Cell Cycle: An Introduction” (with Andrew Murray) and “Molecular Biology of the Cell: The Problems Book” (with John Wilson).

Dr Hunt has served on numerous scientific advisory panels, and on advisory boards of laboratories across the world. He chaired the Life Sciences Panel for selection of European Young Investigators, and was chairman of the council of EMBO. He was a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC) and of the Board of Governors of OIST.

Dr Hunt is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, a Member of EMBO, a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Member of Academia Europaea. He was knighted in June 2006. He is married to Mary Collins, who is Dean of Research at OIST, and they have two children.

Where do Ideas come from? Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt
Tim Hunt

Where do Ideas come from? Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt

How should I approach a difficult research question?
Tim Hunt

How should I approach a difficult research question?

What did you learn from your father?
Tim Hunt

What did you learn from your father?

Do great discoveries require great experiments?
Tim Hunt

Do great discoveries require great experiments?

Is it beneficial to move between labs?
Tim Hunt

Is it beneficial to move between labs?

Can I trust what’s written in scientific journals?
Tim Hunt

Can I trust what’s written in scientific journals?

Is it best to get a very large grant?
Tim Hunt

Is it best to get a very large grant?

What is the impact of extreme specialism in science?
Tim Hunt

What is the impact of extreme specialism in science?

Could science be accelerated if we had more access to negative results?
Tim Hunt

Could science be accelerated if we had more access to negative results?

Are some people inherently good at science?
Tim Hunt

Are some people inherently good at science?

Is it important for us to improve the academic career structure?
Tim Hunt

Is it important for us to improve the academic career structure?

Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative Germany 2017 Short Highlights
Tim Hunt

Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative Germany 2017 Short Highlights

What relationship do you have with your students?
Tim Hunt

What relationship do you have with your students?

How should scientists deal with competition?
Tim Hunt

How should scientists deal with competition?

What should you do if your approach isn’t working?
Tim Hunt

What should you do if your approach isn’t working?