24 May 2001

Nicholas Tonks, who leads a research team at the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York, USA has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the discovery and characterisation of a new class of enzyme called "protein tyrosine phosphatases".

From 1982-1985 Nick Tonks was a Medical Research Council funded PhD student in the Department Biochemistry and was supervised by Sir Philip Cohen.

Nick Tonks was the first to isolate "protein tyrosine phosphatase". This achievement led the understanding of the important roles of this large protein family in many aspects of cellular behaviour, especially in regulating cell growth and immune responses. In particular he discovered PTP1B which is now known to play a key role in obesity and insulin signalling and is one of the hottest drug targets in the pharmaceutical industry.

Founded in 1660, The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific academy at the forefront of enquiry and discovery. The Society is independent of government by virtue of its Royal Charters and throughout its history, has promoted excellence in science. The backbone of the Society is its Fellowship of the most eminent scientists of the day, elected by peer review for life and entitled to use FRS after their name.