Sir Paul Nurse admits that most scientists don’t effectively engage society. “You need a balance – you need the rigour but then to present it in a way that is attractive and interesting.” I asked if academic targets and quotas stifle them. “I think when they’re crude metrics such as how many papers have you published or whether it is in a journal, it’s a mockery of intellectual activity. There is information in it that is worthwhile so it’s not a waste of time.”

The Francis Crick Institute (FIC), which he heads, edits genes in human embryos. Discussing the ethics behind it, he argues that the UK is better at having a balanced debate than elsewhere. He warns that companies that are able to sell people’s full genome sequence to them “need to be careful. It can become irresponsible – if people learn they have a disposition to a disease in 30-40 years, they need to be consulted so they don’t misinterpret the information. We’re a consequence of effects of particular genes but also influenced by the environment. It’s simplistic to say this genome leads to this.” What about Huntingdon's Disease, where the findings are clearer? “There is some advantage as intervention can be introduced. With proper management – that’s key – it’s not a bad idea.”

He describes his colleague, Sir Tim Hunt’s ‘trouble with girls’ comment, as “almost Shakespearean in its tragedy”. “It distressed me so much,” because as his friend for over two decades, “I never saw chauvinistic things from Tim”. This brings us to the proportion of women in science: “In the field of research, of graduate students, we have around 40-50 per cent women. But the drop-off is high. Women occupying senior scientist positions is around 20 per cent. The real issue is through childbearing. The solution is simple: you allow for women to be judged on 50 per cent output for a period of time. In my institution, I allow a woman researcher during childbearing to have a part-time position and to be judged on that.”

Had he not gone into science, he would have become a theatre director. “I occasionally give talks in grand places. The trouble is speaking in the normal English I write doesn’t resonate with the gothic pillars.” In one of his talks, he compared Milton’s Paradise Lost with Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

I asked whether he thought the British education system encourages students to specialise too early, especially at school level. He did – and noted that the IB allows for greater scope. “The US does have that wider base, where you can choose during your degree. It’s more difficult here – you can do the Natural Sciences Tripos and shift between the sciences but going to the English department is tougher”. He proposes a similarly wide approach when discussing career options for postgraduates. “There are many PhD students. But there are no jobs at the end. The solution is to be honest and tell them, these opportunities don’t necessarily exist.”

To future scientists, his advice is straightforward: “Be passionate about understanding whatever you’re studying.” His own impetus came out of curiosity: “That’s really helped me in my career. When I was a second-year graduate student, everything failed for me. I thought that I wasn’t an experimentalist. I started looking towards the history, philosophy and sociology of science.” He admits “that would’ve been a bad idea,” adding with a chuckle and a hint of understatement, “because I’ve had some success there”. In 1958, he read in the newspapers that Sputnik 2 which was carrying a dog on board would pass over London. “I went out to the front garden, which faced south. I was in my pyjamas, about nine-years-old, running down the road, chasing Sputnik 2." Although he admits Laika, the dog on the Soviet spacecraft, probably died on lift-off, his interest in science can honestly be said to have been sparked by a flying dead dog.

Despite having spent almost half a century in science, Nurse concedes that he finds it difficult to accurately define it. When asked what areas of science he is keeping his eye on, he cites dark matter and dark energy; the day after our interview, a team including Cambridge scientists announced that they had found gravitational waves. Whether or not Nurse can give an accurate definition of science, it is clear his passion grants him an intuition to continue making observations such as these.