FIt wasn’t love at first sight for Tim Hunt: as a youngster – growing up as the son of a medieval researcher in Oxford – he didn’t really like biology, but he was very good at it. However, he not only got to know it at school as an easy subject for him, as Hunt wrote in a biographical text, but also his school days and his later scientific studies at Oxford were very inspiring.
Hunt researched the controllers of protein synthesis in cells as early as the 1960s. He learned to appreciate simple model organisms, which, after moving to Cambridge, paid off during summer stays at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where Hunt studied changes in protein synthesis in sea urchin and mussel eggs after fertilization.
The biologist discovered a protein – and how it disappeared
In 1982, however, work almost came to a standstill, says Hunt. “Every idea that my students and I tested turned out to be wrong.” But in July he addressed a question that actually seemed to be answered: why does fertilization lead to an increase in protein synthesis? He compared eggs that had been fertilized with sperm with others who were only shown this using a signal substance.
Hunt found an unknown protein that was expressed after fertilization at the same time as cell divisions and disappeared. He and his colleagues called it cyclin. Cyclins were also found in other species. He was unable to continue work on this at Cambridge, as sea urchins and mussels were not kept there, but the following summer the earlier discoveries proved reproducible. “What I discovered was the disappearance of a protein,” Hunt later said.
Important results for cancer research
Cyclins play a central role in controlling the cell cycle and cell division, which they in turn are inhibited to terminate. Hunt received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery, together with the biochemists Leland Hartwell and Paul Nurse, who researched other aspects of cell cycle control – these processes are also of central importance for understanding the formation and control of tumors.
Addressing the medical community—“who believe the study of man is the key to understanding humanity”—Hunt recalled in his Nobel Prize lecture that the first understanding of the concept of the cell cycle came from studies on onion roots, the results of which led radiobiologist Alma Howard and the physicist Stephen Pelc published in 1953. Naturally, Hunt has an inquisitive nature, but humor is also very important to him. “The scientists I admire most are passionate about finding the truth—but they also want to have a good time,” Hunt said. Research should “also bring a lot of joy”.
A misogynistic statement changed Hunt’s life fundamentally
But his own scientific career ended abruptly in 2015: journalists reported that at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, during a discussion on the role of women in science, Hunt said he had difficulties working with female colleagues. “Three things happen when they’re in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and if you criticize them, they start crying,” he said, according to participants. “Maybe we should set up separate labs for boys and girls?”
The misogynist remarks made by the Nobel Prize winner spread very quickly on social media, the hashtag #distractinglysexy trended on Twitter, and the media reported extensively – but some did not communicate or denied that he obviously meant the statement as a joke. Hunt later apologized. At the same time, the biochemist, who had met his wife in the laboratory himself, affirmed that problems with women could lead to impairments in science, he knew this because of his own shortcomings.
“I was a stupid boy”
On the flight back from Seoul, University College London had asked him to resign from an honorary professorship, as Hunt said, two days later he said so; in the face of public demands, he also resigned from honorary posts at the Royal Society and the European Research Council. Former employees and other researchers unsuccessfully spoke out in favor of him.
“I was a stupid boy,” Hunt said in an interview the following year — in his view, science journalists are more interested in the scandal than in communicating the beauty of science. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.” The very use of the word “girl” is bad, Hunt acknowledged, but he also speaks of “boy” and has always wanted to be absolutely fair and non-discriminatory. The consequences of the scandal took him significantly, since then he has largely lived in seclusion.
Shortly before, Hunt had shown himself modestly: the Nobel Prize shamed him because the excellent discoveries depended on the contributions of numerous people. “Nobel prizes should be awarded to hundreds of people – not just one, two or three.” Hunt celebrates his 80th birthday this Sunday.