Xing Zong, of Duke University Chinese Students and Scholar Association (DCSSA), recently had an interview with Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2001 Sir Paul Nurse.

Sir Paul M. Nurse (b. January 25, 1949) is a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland H. Hartwell and R. Timothy Hunt for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation by cyclin and cyclin dependent kinases.

Nurse's parents came from Norfolk. He was born and raised in Wembley, in North West London, and was educated at Harrow County Grammar School for Boys. He received his undergraduate degree in 1970 from the University of Birmingham and his PhD in 1973 from the University of East Anglia. Beginning in 1976, Nurse identified the gene cdc2 in yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe). This gene controls the progression of the cell cycle from G1 phase to S phase and the transition from G2 phase to mitosis. In 1987, Nurse identified the homologous gene in human, CDK1, which codes for a cyclin dependent kinase.

In 1984, Nurse joined the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF). He left in 1988 to chair the department of microbiology at the University of Oxford. He then returned to the ICRF as Director of Research in 1993, and in 1996 was named Director General of the ICRF, which became Cancer Research UK in 2002. In 2003, he became president of Rockefeller University in New York City where he continues to work on the cell cycle of fission yeast.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Nurse has received numerous awards and honours. In 1989, he became a fellow of the Royal Society and in 1995 he received a Royal Medal and became a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1998. Nurse was knighted in 1999. He was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur in 2002. He was also awarded the Copley Medal in 2005. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences one of the top honours in April 2006.

Xing Zong and Sir Paul Nurse (R)

Z: Dr. Nurse, you moved from England to New York in 2003 to take the position of President of Rockefeller University. In your opinion, what is unique about this institution?

N: Rockefeller University is small, and has no undergraduates, so it is not well known outside the biomedical research community.

It is a research institute in New York City, which gives PhDs. We only have 75 professors, which is a very small number, but have 7 Nobel Laureates, the highest ratio in the world. (Smile) We have a focus on biomedicine, but also have physics, chemistry and math, particular when it is related to biological and biomedical research. We only have two or three professors in each area, and are very interdisciplinary, with no departments. The idea is to get creative interactions between individuals.

Z: Your strategic plan for Rockefeller over the next six years includes recruiting at least a dozen new laboratory heads, employing an open recruitment approach designed to identify the very best scientific talent regardless of their field. This sounds very ambitious!

N: There are several elements to making a truly excellent research university: first, is always choosing people who will be innovative and creative. The institution should also create an environment, One of the things I am doing at Rockefeller is to create a new building, which will encourage individual to meet and interact, even if they don't work closely together, so that we can get this sort of unexpected association between different people working in different areas, which will allow interesting interactions, out of which creative things can emerge.

Z: What have you done to facilitate world-class science and promote interactions among researchers?

N: We are creating a building where everybody will move towards the center, where coffee, tea and elevators are, so that they can mix with anybody else in the building.

The second thing is to have institutional mechanisms to encourage talking with colleagues. For example, every couple of weeks, in the evening, all faculties gather together, to have informal talks to each other. We have a major seminar once a week which everybody attends.

Z: Your spent over three decades doing biomedical research in United Kingdom, maybe you can share with us some insightful observations on the comparison between the research life in Europe and here in the U.S.

N: I have been in U.S. for two and half years. I got all my work done in England. Science shares the common value across the world. Scientists from different culture and countries understand each other, and talk the same language in a very general sense.

They also have different flavors of science. If you go to Japan for example, go to America, England, everywhere is a little bit different. I like that. There is no one correct way to do it. Different problems may be tackled in different ways within different cultures. It is very good that we have a total world wide enterprise. For me, moving from Europe to U.S. was a big move.

The United States has better overall science, people more mobile, more international, I would say. I think in England, there might be a little more freedom. You are under less pressure to publish results quickly. So you have more freedom to look at things, a little bit more time to relax and to be a little lazier.

Z: You just mentioned scientists' pressure. If scientists are under less pressure to produce results quickly, they will have a better chance to make research work solid. But ��Publish or Perish�� is a general rule now in science world. What do you think?

N: I think we should elongate the time scale for publishing. To expect somebody to produce a paper within 2 years is not sensible. If somebody hasn't got proper work within five years, then you should start to get very worried about that. You need a longer period of time and you need to back people more than the project they are doing.

Z: Could you say in lay person's terms, what happened as a result of that Nobel Prize winning discovery?

N: I still spent half a week in Rockefeller with my own laboratory, I told you Rockefeller is quite small, and it can be administered in a much shorter time than a university like Duke. I am an administrator and a research scientist. What Peter Agre (2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) may also have told you is, the problem with the Nobel Prize is that it is like a third job. I now have three jobs. I am an administrator, a scientist and a Nobel Prize winner, which means you have to come to meetings, have interviews with you----if I didn't have a Nobel Prize, then you probably won't want to meet me. (smile)

Z: Many scientists sacrifice their research time to fulfill the social responsibilities by talking to the general public. I guess you have also done a lot to raise the science awareness.

N: Yes, I've done that a great deal in England. I led a committee and initiatives in this direction. I do some TV programs in the U.S., I think it is really important to do that.

Z: It's often said that science is a matter of study, waiting, careful observation; I am sure you will agree ��persistence and strong will�� are two other indispensable ingredients. Here is the issue I would like you to address: how would you keep your students motivated?

N: I train graduate students, I train quite a few. You have to encourage their curiosity, their wanting to know. You have to be very supportive of them. If you are doing research, it is often very difficult; you often fail. You have to raise their hope and aspirations, aim for something high. But you also have to recognize that they are not always going to get there. You have to give them help and support. It is complicated business.

Z: Lots of young people have great minds and great potential but they don't succeed in laboratory. What is your suggestion for them?

N: You have to be very careful that good people don't get destroyed by a very difficult project. Usually if that's happening, and I judge they are very good, I will try to move them to anther project, where they are more likely to be successful. If somebody is failing because they are not very good at themselves, then I help them at the time and advise from after finishing their PhDs, they should consider not doing this any further. So I really don't persuade people to stay unless they really have a passion and good at it.

Z: Last question. Does Rockefeller have any collaboration with Chinese institutions? Have you ever been to China?

N: We have many Chinese post-doctors working here. It is probably the biggest single nation outside the United States. We also have some Chinese students. Rockefeller is extremely unusual because no student pays for fees, every student is supported with a salary, so every student coming to Rockefeller is completely supported.

We can attract students from all over the world, half of the students are not Americans. I have been many times to Hongkong, but never to the rest of China. In recent years, I received invitations, but they always come too late for me to arrange my agenda. They come two months before the event, but I am already booked up. China is an extremely interesting country; I am looking forward to visiting it. I want to see the arts and the culture, as well as science.