Martin Evans

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2008

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive
0:04.9	for rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.2	The program was originally broadcast in 2008.
0:27.6	My cast away this week is the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Sir Martin Evans.
0:33.0	The grandfather of embryonic stem cell research, the advancements he's made have transformed
0:38.2	our knowledge of how and why illnesses affect us.
0:42.1	In unlocking the potential of embryonic stem cells, his work has illuminated our understanding
0:47.1	of cancer, arthritis, heart disease and Parkinson's.
0:51.0	He's motivated not only as a pioneering scientist, but as a husband, who has seen first-hand
0:57.0	the devastating effects of the type of illnesses he has spent his career struggling to understand.
1:03.3	Sir Martin, the Nobel Prize then, you were just a couple of months from retiring, it was
1:07.7	October of last year that you got a call.
1:09.8	What happened?
1:10.8	Well, I was near Cambridge in my very oldest clothes in our car with a sander in the back
1:17.9	of the car, just been from to the hard shop and I was on my way to my daughter's house
1:22.5	where we'd been desperately trying to help her, just clear up enough for the imminent
1:26.6	birth of a new grandchild and I got a voicemail message saying, Martin, would you very urgently
1:36.2	please call this number from one of the secretaries in Cardiff?
1:40.2	And yes, it was the Secretary of the Committee, told me the news.
1:45.2	I then tried to sort of take it in and talk to him and say, well, can I know more about
1:50.6	this and when is it and so on and he said, I'm sorry, you'll hear all about this very
1:54.9	shortly but I have to go now this four minutes time, I have to be at the press conference
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.