Posts

A big thanks to Professor Jerome E. Groopman for his review of my book ‘Insulin – the Crooked Timber’ in 6th Oct edition of the New York Review of Books – but I was sorry to read of the death of Professor Arthur Riggs, one of the pioneers of recombinant human insulin and who kindly helped me with my research when I was writing the book.

And staying with the theme of bringing the history of science to a wider audience, I’d like to give a big thanks to Jen Farquharson, editor of ‘Viewpoint’ the magazine for the British Society for the History of Science for the invitation to give this interview in the latest edition – I really enjoyed thinking about these questions…

I was surprised to learn from a recent newspaper article (‘Leeds’ drunken Otley run goes from high spirits to public menace’ Robyn Vinter, ‘The Observer’ 21st August) that people travel from as far as London to partake in what has become the notorious ‘Otley Run’ pub crawl in the suburb of Headingley, Leeds . But I should point out that (cricket aside) there are good reasons to visit Headingley other than to vomit from pub to pub dressed as Mario or Bananaman, such as to discover its little known but crucial role in the unravelling of the chemistry of both insulin and DNA, the genetic molecule…

Pioneering scientist William Astbury ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ would have been delighted at recent news that #DeepMind #AlphaFold AI has broken bold new ground in biology by predicting the shape of over 200 million proteins. And I’m equally delighted that new paperback edition of ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ is pubilshed today by Oxford University Press telling the story of this forgotten pioneer who first blazed the trail in the field of solving protein structure. Understanding the molecular origami of proteins may well have all begun with Astbury’s work on humble wool fibre, & a coat woven from monkeynuts, but it’s gone on to explain how haemoglobin carries oxygen and how a vaccine can block the SARS-CoV2 virus from binding to human cells – to name but a few…