Abstract of Professor Sir Paul Nurse's lecture

The Great Ideas of Biology

by

Professor Sir Paul Nurse

Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2001

President, The Rockefeller University, New York, USA

Three of the ideas of biology are the gene theory, the theory of evolution by natural selection, and the proposal that the cell is the fundamental unit of all life. When considering the question of what is life these ideas come together, because the special way cells reproduce provides the conditions by which natural selection takes place allowing living organisms to evolve. A fourth idea is that the organization of chemistry within the cell provides explanations for life's phenomena. A new idea is the nature of biological self organization on which living cells and organisms process information and acquire specific forms.