Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-201017 Helmi 2008

Martin Evans

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Sir Martin Evans. He is known as the grandfather of embryonic stem-cell research because of the breakthrough he made more than 25 years ago to first isolate the stem cells of mice and then cultivate them in a laboratory. After that leap forward, he worked alongside his fellow Nobel laureates Oliver Smithies and Mario Capecchi to develop the Knock-Out Mouse - a mouse that has had part of its genetic code disabled so the effect on the animal can be studied. The Knock-Out Mouse has become a scientific tool used the world over - and has vastly increased the amount of knowledge we have about how the human body works.

Brought up on the outskirts of London with enthusiastic and encouraging parents, he says that he was always fascinated by science. But, although he was a bright pupil, he was a shy boy and not the kind of student to walk away with glittering prizes.

He was within months of retiring when he got the call, last October, that he had been awarded the greatest honour in science - the Nobel Prize - since then life has been busier than ever and now, he says, he is determined to use his status to try to encourage children to study science, so that they too can be enthused at the miracles of the world around us and the worlds within.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Their Sound is Gone Out in All Lands by George Frideric Handel Book: Largest anthology of poetry possible Luxury: A microscope, equipment and a stack of notebooks.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(247)

Sandie Shaw

Kirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sandie Shaw. With her melodic, velvety voice, bare feet and Sassoon bob she was the epitome of everything that was swinging about the '60s. She was just 17 when s...

26 Joulu 201035min

Nick Park

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park.His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit: Gromit the silent but wise dog; Wallace, his well meaning owner with notably less brai...

19 Joulu 201036min

Sir Torquil Norman

Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman. He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmot...

12 Joulu 201035min

Frances Wood

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Frances Wood. As head of the Chinese collection at the British Library she is the gatekeeper to some of the rarest printed texts in the world. Her l...

5 Joulu 201035min

Robert Harris

Kirsty Young's castaway is the best-selling writer Robert Harris. He was, apparently, a political junkie from a young age; he was just six when he wrote the essay: 'Why me and my dad don't like Sir Al...

28 Marras 201037min

Alice Cooper

Kirsty Young's castaway is the rock musician Alice Cooper.As a teenager he says it was British music that he tuned in to - listening to The Beatles, The Yardbirds and The Who. He realised that while ...

21 Marras 201036min

Anna Del Conte

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cookery writer Anna Del Conte. Born to a wealthy Milanese family, she arrived in Britain in 1949 where her Italian ingenuity with food was sorely needed in a nation stil...

19 Marras 201036min

Ian McMillan

Kirsty Young's castaway is the poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Thirty years ago he was working in a factory gluing together tennis ball halves. Then he got a grant, chucked in his job and devoted h...

7 Marras 201037min