Supporting the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
11-02-2010
Every year, the UK spends hundreds of millions of pounds researching new ways to fight cancer – one of the greatest killers of our time. Please join us for an exclusive insight into the critical world of cancer research.
Location: The Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS
Our guest speakers are Nobel Prize winner and Principal Scientist at Cancer Research UK, Professor Sir Tim Hunt, and Professor Atan Gross of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel will give us an insight into their latest research as well as a close look at the important developments taking place on the fight against this killer disease.
This event also provides an opportunity to welcome Weizmann UK’s new chairman, Martin Paisner CBE.
7:15 Registration & buffet breakfast
8:00 Welcome – Martin Paisner CBE, Chairman, Weizmann UK
Sir Tim Hunt & Professor Atan Gross
8:45 Q & A
9:00 Close
This breakfast has been kindly sponsored by Shore Capital Group plc and is free of charge.
Places are limited so please RSVP by 4 February 2010 - contact Elizabeth at events@weizmann.org.uk T. 020 7424 6860
SPEAKERS BIOGRAPHIES
Tim Hunt is a ‘Principal Scientist’ (note, not THE principal scientist) at Cancer Research UK, Clare Hall Laboratories, in South Mimms, Herts (15 miles north of central London). Dr Hunt was born in 1943 and lived in Oxford until he was 18 years old and went up to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. He did his Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry entitled “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.
Dr Hunt has helped write two books: together with Andrew Murray, 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 now in their 4th edition.Apart from researching, writing and lecturing, Dr Hunt finds himself on numerous advisory panels. He was a member of the EMBO panel that reviewed Cell and Molecular Biology in Austria and chaired the EMBO review panel for the French “Genopole” system. He was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the IMP in Vienna, and is a member of the advisory board of laboratories in Cambridge, Dundee, Edinburgh, London, Madrid, Mishima, Oxford and Trieste. He chaired the Life Sciences Panel for selection of European Young Investigators under the aegis of the European Science Foundation, and is chairman of the council of EMBO. He actively promoted the idea of a European Research Council by lobbying commissioners and MPs in Brussels.
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 Professor of Infection and Immunity at University College London. They have two children, Celia (15) and Agnes (11). Tim’s iPhoto library contains more than 31000 digital pictures (since 2001).
Prof. Atan Gross was born in Philadelphia, PA, and undertook his higher education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he earned a B.Sc. in Biology (1987), and M.Sc. (1990) and Ph.D. (1995) degrees in biochemistry. From 1996 to 1998, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University (St. Louis, MO). He then continued his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA). In 2000, he returned to Israel and joined the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Biological Regulation as a Senior Scientist. He was appointed Associate Professor in 2007. He is currently on a 1-year sabbatical at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK.