British Nobel laureate Sir Tim Hunt is a biochemist at University College London. At least, he was until this week. He resigned after a public outcry was heard over comments he made about women in the lab. At a conference in South Korea, Hunt said: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” he said. “Three things happen when they are in the lab… You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.” He later apologized.
The 72-year-old Hunt is married to Mary Collins, a professor of immunology at University College London. She is head of the Division of Advanced Therapies at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, and the Director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Molecular Virology. She studies the use of viruses as vectors (for introducing new genes into cells) which can be useful in developing cancer vaccines. Hunt and Collins have two children. They apparently fell in love in the lab.
