Illustration of the British geneticist Paul Nurse (born 1949). Nurses main area of study has been the cell cycle, the sequence of events that lead to a cell dividing into two daughter cells. In the 1970s he discovered the cdc2 gene in fission yeast (Saccharomyces pombe). The gene coded for a protein that was vital for cell cycle progression. In 1987 Nurse found the corresponding gene in humans, cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (cdk1). Nurse received a share of 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Tim Hunt and Leland Hartwell, for his work on the regulation of the cell cycle. He was President of the Royal Society from 2010-2015.