Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Nobel Prize-winning chemist known for pioneering work on the structure of genes, crucial to understanding cancer.
On the island
Eight records
Zulu War Dance
We lived in Durban on the edge of the bush and new suburbs were being created, um roads, and the Zulu work gangs would be around on the edge. There would be a leader and a team, and the leader would call out the rhythm, and the men with pickaxes would then bring their pickaxes down and answer him in a chorus. It's the same patterns you find in Zulu war dances. So I'll choose a a Zulu war dance.
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
Jascha Heifetz, NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Well, record number two is really one of my first introductions to classical music. I had a friend in Durban, who was very musical, played the violin. He himself wasn't such a good violinist, but I did learn to listen to some uh violin concertos. So, my record I've chosen is the Mendelsohn violin concerto.
English String Orchestra conducted by William Boughton
My wife took part in a performance from the dance school and she danced to a piece of music by Vaughan Williams. I always remember that. And on the desert island I would like to have that as a memory.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 'Choral'Favourite
Gulbenkian Choir Lisbon, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century conducted by Frans Brüggen
Oh, record number four does remind me of my days in London, uh, before I moved to Cambridge, going walking across Hyde Park to Albert Hall. and hearing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I went with my wife and it was a marvellous day and it was a marvellous performance.
The Magic Flute: 'Pa-Pa-Pa-Papagena!'
Eva Lind, Olaf Bär, Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
I thought I couldn't have a programme of eight records without having some Mozart in it. I've chosen uh excerpt from the magic flute.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major, Op. 39
English String Orchestra conducted by William Boughton
Record number six is Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. It was played at a Nobel ceremony.
This is a record for light relief. I had thought of choosing Gershwin. They wouldn't believe me. That reflects quite a lot of my scientific career when I said things I was told it couldn't be done or which was impossible or whatever. But I decided in the end to do something in a similar vein and chose Cole Porter.
Ofra Harnoy, London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
My last record is Khornidre. Khornidre is the opening chant at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the Cantor sings it. Khornidre means all oaths, and it's really a kind of introduction to prayers. It it's not directly concerned with sins and things of that sort. It's concerned with nullifying all oaths. What it means is that you must start a fresh life again. I've chosen not the cantor singing it, but some music by Max Bruch.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:26Do you think you're born with that kind of curiosity, or is it something that's inculcated as a result of your environment?
I think you're born with it. Environment helps. Growing up in Durban is a very colourful experience. All sorts of uh very lively, different cultures mixing, different languages. But um there are many of my, say, my school contemporaries who didn't show any interest.
Presenter asks
1:55Do we dull the creative instinct of our children sometimes because we force them down [the academic path too early]?
Yes, well I noticed when I came to England, to Cambridge, I saw people who had gone through the Mill School, A-level scholarship, Cambridge, and I felt I was lucky not to have to have done that, for my own, so to speak, education, taking advantage of really quite high standards in in South Africa, but not pressured. I didn't have to [make] choices too early on, that really is the key.
Presenter asks
7:30What had set you on course to read medicine [at university]?
Well I when I was at school I'd read a book called Microbe Hunters by Paul de Crefe. There was quite a lot about Louis Pasteur, Koch and also something about viruses, which very people read lots understood about them.
The keepsakes
The book
Roman Republican Coinage and Roman Imperial Coinage
Various
I'm interested in the historical aspects which they celebrate.
The luxury
a set of mixed Greek and Roman coins
then I'd have the coins to sort out and I'd have the books to research with.
Presenter asks
16:13The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology has won nine Nobel Prizes over forty years. How do you explain its success?
Well, I think it's essentially due to the enlightened policy of the Medical Research Council, which supports basic work, which doesn't seem to necessarily be leading anywhere, but is already an exploration of biological processes.
Presenter asks
24:07Is the ability to switch genes on and off the beginning of a cure for cancer, and how close are we?
I don't think that's not so. In certain cases, for example, one of the leukemias, chronic myological leukemia, now 90% of the cases are solved. But in fact, the progress in understanding cancers come not from tackling it directly. Most that we know about gene action in cancers come from studies on animal viruses, some of which do produce cancerous conditions.
Presenter asks
26:31How great is your fear that the planet can't withstand the predicted increase in population?
Well, it's the at the moment we can have been able to sustain population growth by increased food productivity, by incre various health measures and things of that sort. But I am worried about this and have been worried about it because I think it's really the fifth horseman of the apocalypse and the various bodies have tried to limit it.
“Curiosity, he claims, is probably the strongest single source of knowledge and advance.”
“You must understand, I was perfectly innocent. I didn't regard this as extraordinary.”
“If you're exploring the unknown, you really just have to choose a field or problem or an issue which looks likely to be important, and that's a matter of judgment. Partly intuition, but intuition involves a great deal of experience and know how. But you have to have time to succeed. These aren't quick things.”
“The computer is nothing it doesn't do anything that you don't tell it to do. It's very stupid, a computer is just fast.”