2018 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, Sir Gregory Winter

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an astonishing story of a scientific discovery, Greg Winter tells Jim Al-Khalili how decades of curiosity-driven research led to a revolution in medicine. Forced to temporarily abandon his work in the lab when a road rage incident left him with a paralysed right arm, Greg Winter spent several months looking at the structure of proteins. Looking at the stunning computer graphics made the pain in his arm go away. It also led him to a Nobel Prize winning idea: to ‘humanise’ mouse antibodies. A visit to an old lady in hospital made Greg determined to put his research to good use. He fought hard to ensure open access to the technology he invented and set up a start up company to encourage the development of therapeutic drugs. It took years to persuade anyone to fund his Nobel Prize winning idea that led to the creation of an entirely new class of drugs, known as monoclonal antibodies. In 2018, the market for these drugs, which include Humira for rheumatoid arthritis and Herceptin for breast cancer, was worth $70 billion. Producer: Anna Buckley

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
0:04.7	Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.
0:08.8	Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.
0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.7	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes,
0:24.7	you're doing the wrong thing.
0:25.9	Julie, at your service. Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales.
0:31.6	Welcome to the Life Scientific Podcast with me,
0:34.0	Jim Allele. My guest on this show makes me feel very small indeed.
0:39.0	Not only has he won a Nobel Prize,
0:41.0	he's also invented some of the world's best-selling drugs.
0:44.3	Drugs that last year alone were worth 70 billion dollars.
0:48.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:53.2	So Greg Winter is a remarkable scientist.
0:55.9	Just two months ago, he was in Stockholm, collecting the 2018 Nobel Prize for chemistry,
1:02.1	together with Francis Arnold and George Smith.
1:04.3	And not only has he won a Nobel Prize for his biochemical research, he's also pushed
1:09.5	hard to maximize the benefit to humanity from his discoveries.
1:13.7	Humira is currently the best-selling drug in the world,
1:17.2	used to treat a range of autoimmune conditions like arthritis and Crohn's disease.
	...

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