Hunt, R. Timothy
R. Timothy Hunt(Richard Timothy Hunt), 1943–, British biochemist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1968. Hunt was a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City (1968–81) and a professor at Cambridge (1981–90) before becoming (1991) principal scientist at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK London Research Institute). Hunt received the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Leland H. Hartwell and Sir Paul M. Nurse for discoveries concerning key regulators of the cell cycle. Hunt discovered cyclins, which are proteins that form and degrade during the cell cycle, and determined that they enable activation of cyclin-dependent kinase, enzymes that are involved in a number of cell functions. The work of Hunt and his colleagues laid the foundation for an improved understanding of chromosomal instabilities in cancer cells.