Paul Nurse to Succeed Martin Rees as President of the Royal Society. (April 24, 2010)

The Council of the Royal Society announced yesterday the nomination of Nobel Laureate geneticist Paul Nurse to be the next President of the Royal Society when astrophysicist  Martin Rees completes his five-year term at the end of November this year.

On the ballot paper for the annual election of Council members Fellows will vote on Professor Nurse's nomination with the result to be announced at the Council meeting on July 8 this year.

In making the announcement the RS said that Professor Nurse is a geneticist who works on what controls the division and shape of cells. Previously he has been Professor of Microbiology at the University of Oxford, CEO of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK, and is presently President of Rockefeller University in New York.  Together with Leland H. Hartwell (U.S.), R. Timothy Hunt (U.K), he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for discoveries of “key regulators of the cell cycle”. In 2005 he was awarded the Royal Society Copley Medal.

In all there have been 59 Presidents of the Royal Society since it was founded in 1660. Previous presidents include Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, and Ernest Rutherford.