Tim Hunt

Career and research

Early career

Following his PhD, Hunt returned to New York to work with London, in collaboration with Nechama Kosower, her husband Edward Kosower, and Ellie Ehrenfeld. While there, they discovered that tiny amounts of glutathione inhibited protein synthesis in reticulocytes and that tiny amounts of RNA killed the synthesis altogether. After returning to Cambridge, he again began work with Tony Hunter and Richard Jackson, who had discovered the RNA strand used to start haemoglobin synthesis. After 3–4 years, the team discovered at least two other chemicals acting as inhibitors.

Hunt regularly spent summers working at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, which was popular with scientists for its advanced summer courses, and in particular, with those interested in the study of mitosis. The location provided a ready supply of surf clams (Spisula solidissima) and sea urchins (Arbacia punctulata) amongst the reefs and fishing docks, and it was these invertebrates that were particularly useful for the study of the synthesis of proteins in embryogenesis, as the embryos were simply generated with the application of filtered sea water, and the transparency of the embryo cells was well suited to microscopic study.

Discovery of cyclins

It was at Woods Hole around July 1982, using Arbacia sea urchin eggs as his model organism, that he discovered cyclin proteins. Cyclins play a key role in regulating the cell-division cycle. Hunt was observing the eggs undergo cell division after fertilization. The study also included a control group where the eggs had been activated without fertilization by a calcium ionophore. The eggs were incubated with the amino acid methionine in which some of the atoms were radioactive isotopes (radiolabelled), with samples being taken from the eggs at 10 minute intervals. During the egg development, the radioactive methionine was uptaken into the cells and used to make proteins. From the samples, proteins were precipitated and then separated by mass into distinct bands on a resolving gel mat, which were then observed by photographic film that could detect the radioactivity emitted by the proteins. Observing the changes in the bands across the samples, Hunt noticed that one of the proteins rose in abundance before disappearing during the mitosis phase of cell division. Hunt named the protein "cyclin" based on his observation of the cyclical changes in its levels. It was later discovered that cyclins are continuously synthesised, but are specifically targeted for proteolysis during mitosis. The discovery of cyclins was reported in a study published in Cell in 1983. Hunt later demonstrated that cyclins were also present in another sea urchin, Lytechinus pictus, as well as in Spisula clams.

Hunt was aware that the discovery of cyclins was significant, but was initially unsure of how cyclins functioned in regard to cell division. This was clarified in later papers in the 1980s and 1990s, some of which Hunt co-authored. These again utilized sea urchin eggs as well as eggs of the frog Xenopus, and demonstrated that cyclins were present in the cells of most organisms, and combine with kinase enzymes (specifically cyclin-dependent kinases) to form maturation-promoting factor (MPF). MPF has previously been identified in 1971 by Yoshio Masui and Clement Markert from Xenopus eggs. MPF induces mitosis, with the cyclic activation and inactivation of MPF being a key element in regulating and progressing the cell cycle.

Later career

In 1990, he began work at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, later known as the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, in the United Kingdom, where his work focused on understanding on what makes cell go cancerous, that is: proliferate uncontrollably, with the ordinary inhibitory signals switched off. That same year, Hunt defined the concept of short linear motifs, parts of protein sequences that mediate interactions with other proteins. In 1993, the book The Cell Cycle: An Introduction, which Hunt co-authored along with Andrew Murray, was published by Oxford University Press. Hunt had his own laboratory at the Clare Hall Laboratories until the end of 2010, and remains an Emeritus Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering. He has served on the Selection Committee for the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. In 2010, Hunt joined the Academic Advisory Board of the Austrian think tank Academia Superior, Institute for Future Studies.

Hunt has been a mentor and collaborator to researchers in the scientific community. During his career, he has supervised numerous PhD students, including Hugh Pelham and Jonathon Pines.

Science advocacy

In addition to his scientific contributions, Hunt is a lifelong advocate for scientific research. After winning the Nobel Prize in 2001, he spent much of his time traveling the world, talking to both popular and specialist audiences. In these talks he offered his characteristic perspective on inquiry, which emphasizes the importance of having fun and being lucky. He also believes that science benefits when power is given to young people, himself having been given full autonomy and authority at age 27.

2015 controversy

At the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul in June 2015, Hunt gave a impromptu toast at a lunch for female journalists and scientists. As recounted by an EU official, Hunt said:

It's strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls? Now, seriously, I'm impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without a doubt, an important role in it. Science needs women, and you should do science, despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.

Parts of the remarks were widely publicised on social media due to their perceived sexist nature, resulting in an intense online backlash, which some described as an act of public shaming. Hunt resigned from his honorary professorship at University College London after the university told him to; he also resigned from several other research positions. Hunt apologised and stated that the remarks were in jest. He said that they had been taken out of context, as the remarks had originally been reported without the words starting with "now seriously". Hunt also stated he "did mean the part about having trouble with girls". Some public figures and scientists, including some who had worked with Hunt, suggested that the backlash against him was disproportionate.

Personal life

Hunt is married to the immunologist Mary Collins, who was provost of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, and is Director of the Blizard Institute Queen Mary University of London. The couple have two daughters.