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Paul Nurse and Dan Rather have both spent their lives looking at the world and how it works, albeit from very different perspectives. Now the Nobel Prize winning geneticist and esteemed journalist come together for a frank and thoughtful conversation on the state of science and its role in society. Topics include climate change, GMOs, science education, how research spurs economic development, and Dr. Nurse's own remarkably inspiring and surprising personal history. Funding for this interview was provided by the Lasker Foundation.
Sir Paul Nurse is a leading geneticist, science advocate, and policy maker who has had an major impact on science throughout his career. Nurse won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for the discovery of the protein cdc2/CDK1, a cyclin-dependent kinase that is the key regulator of the cell cycle. He is currently President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute and previously served as President of Rockefeller University. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he has received numerous awards and honors for his vast achievements including the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Royal Medal, election as a foreign associate into the US National Academy of Sciences, and knighthood.
Dan Rather has a resume that reads like a history book. He has interviewed every American president since Eisenhower and personally covered almost every important global dateline of the last 60 years, from the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam, to Watergate to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Rather helped pioneer the very idea that television could be a place for news, and he has kept that spirit of innovation alive by constantly pushing the boundaries of what video storytelling could accomplish. His independent production company News and Guts specializes in high-quality non-fiction content across a range of traditional and digital distribution channels. He has a special interest in telling the stories of science.