Professor Sharon Peacock, scientist

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Professor Sharon Peacock is professor of public health and microbiology at Cambridge University. In March 2020 she set up the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium to map the genetic sequence of the virus as it spread and mutated. Within a year COG-UK was leading the world in identifying mutant COVID strains, and this data was instrumental in helping the development of vaccines and treatments. Sharon was born in Margate and left school at 16 to work in her local corner shop. She moved on to become a dental nurse the following year and after that she trained to be a nurse at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. After studying for A levels at evening classes, in 1983 she won a place to study medicine as a mature student at the University of Southampton. After further training and several years researching bacterial diseases in Thailand, she returned to the UK where she led the development of the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Initiative. In 2021 Sharon was awarded the MRC Millennium Medal, the Medical Research Council’s most prestigious prize. DISC ONE: Fast Car - Tracy Chapman DISC TWO: A Boy and a Girl - Voces8 DISC THREE: Time Has Told Me - Nick Drake DISC FOUR: Title: Driving Home for Christmas - Chris Rea DISC FIVE: Take a Bow - Muse DISC SIX: Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11 (from Fauré’s Requiem) Composed by Gabriel Fauré and performed by Choir of St. John's College, conducted by Andrew Nethsingha DISC SEVEN: Symphonie Fantastique by Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, composed by Hector Berlioz, performed by Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and conducted by John Eliot Gardiner DISC EIGHT: The Lark Ascending, composed by Vaughan Williams and performed by Tasmin Little (violin) BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Andrew Davis BOOK CHOICE: Oxford Textbook of Medicine LUXURY ITEM: A projector and photos CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Time Has Told Me – Nick Drake Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.9	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them
0:13.9	if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.5	And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:21.2	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:30.0	Music Music
0:46.0	My cast away this week is the scientist Sharon Peacock.
0:49.6	She is professor of public health and microbiology at Cambridge University
0:53.5	and is widely acclaimed as one of the world's leading virus hunters,
0:57.3	tracking down new and dangerous variants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1:02.0	In the first weeks of the pandemic, she set up Kogiuk, a consortium of scientists leading the
1:07.4	charge to map the genetic sequence of the virus as it spread and mutated, a challenge she's
1:13.1	likened to assembling an aeroplane during takeoff.
1:16.1	Within a year, Kogiuk had gained worldwide recognition after sequencing almost half the coronavirus
1:22.4	genomes mapped around the globe and that data is vital in the development of vaccines and treatments.
1:29.0	She didn't take the traditional path to scientific excellence.
1:32.1	At 16, she left school and was working in her local corner shop when she answered an advert
1:37.2	for a job as a dental nurse. As she puts it, she moved from teeth to patients,
1:42.2	becoming a nurse, then a doctor.
1:44.4	All of this took time and determination.
1:47.4	She says, failure is a feature of everyone's life, but we don't generally talk about it enough.
	...

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