22. Hermann Staudinger Lecture: “Controlling the Cell Cycle”

Nobelpreisträger Paul Nurse (Francis Crick Institute, London), 14.12.2016

Paul Nurse received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division of cells in cell cycle. He is President of the Royal Society and, since 2011, Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London.

The cell cycle consists of several defined steps that lead to cell division and cell reproduction. Several regulators control all phases of the cell cycle in order to prevent the division and reproduction of defective cells. Paul Nurse was able to identify one of these regulators called the cyclin-dependent kinase. In his lecture, Paul Nurse will specify the role of the activity of cyclin-dependent kinases in different phases of the cell cycle. Since a defective regulation of the cell cycle can lead to an uncontrolled cell growth, researchers assume a causal relation between the cell cycle and cancer formation.