Sir Gregory Winter

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an astonishing story of a scientific discovery, Greg Winter tells Jim Al-Khalili how decades of curiosity-driven research led to a revolution in medicine. Forced to temporarily abandon his work in the lab when a road rage incident left him with a paralysed right arm, Greg Winter spent several months looking at the structure of proteins. Looking at the stunning computer graphics made the pain in his arm go away. It also led him to a Nobel Prize winning idea: to ‘humanise’ mouse antibodies. A visit to an old lady in hospital made Greg determined to put his research to good use. He fought hard to ensure open access to the technology he invented and set up a start up company to encourage the development of therapeutic drugs. It took years to persuade anyone to fund his Nobel Prize winning idea that led to the creation of an entirely new class of drugs, known as monoclonal antibodies. In 2018, the market for these drugs, which include Humira for rheumatoid arthritis and Herceptin for breast cancer, was worth $70 billion.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	This is Discovery from the BBC. I'm Jim El Killelli and in today's program I'm in conversation with a leading scientist about their life and research. Welcome to the life scientific.
0:52.0	So Greg Winter is a remarkable scientist.
0:55.0	Not only has he won a Nobel Prize for his biochemical research,
0:58.0	he's also pushed hard to maximize the benefit to humanity from his discoveries.
1:03.2	Humira is currently the best-selling drug in the world, used to treat a range of
1:08.1	autoimmune conditions like arthritis and Crohn's disease.
1:12.4	Thanks not only to his pioneering research, but arthritis and Crohn's disease.
1:12.5	Thanks not only to his pioneering research,
1:14.7	but also to his business sense and commitment to the public good,
1:18.4	his work has led to the rapid generation
1:20.7	of an entirely new class of therapeutic drugs known as monoclonal antibodies or
1:26.1	Mabs for short. Other well-known examples of Mab drugs include Herceptin for breast cancer and Avastin. In 2018 the market for these drugs was $70 billion.
1:38.0	In 1988 Greg engineered the first humanised monoclonal antibodies. Previous attempts to turn
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