Gregory Winter Explained

Honorific Prefix:Sir
Gregory Winter
Office1:Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
Term Start1:2012
Term End1:2019
Predecessor1:Baron Rees of Ludlow
Successor1:Dame Sally Davies
Birth Name:Gregory Paul Winter
Birth Date:1951 4, df=y
Birth Place:Leicester, Leicestershire, England
Website:
Embed:yes
Education:Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne
Alma Mater:Trinity College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
Known For:Cambridge Antibody Technology
Domantis
Bicycle Therapeutics
Antibody engineering
Awards:Colworth Medal (1986)
EMBO Member (1987)[1]
Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (1989)[2]
Knight Bachelor (2004)
Royal Medal (2011)
Prince Mahidol Award (2016)[3]
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2018)
Field:Biochemistry
Workplaces:University of Cambridge
Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Imperial College London
Thesis Title:The amino acid sequence of tryptophanyl tRNA synthetase from Bacillus stearothermophilus
Thesis Url:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.477727
Thesis Year:1977
Doctoral Advisor:Brian S. Hartley

Sir Gregory Paul Winter (born 14 April 1951)[4] is a Nobel Prize-winning English molecular biologist best known for his work on the therapeutic use of monoclonal antibodies. His research career has been based almost entirely at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering, in Cambridge, England.

He is credited with having invented techniques to both humanize (1986) and, later, to fully humanize using phage display, antibodies for therapeutic uses.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Previously, antibodies had been derived from mice, which made them difficult to use in human therapeutics because the human immune system had anti-mouse reactions to them.[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] For these developments Winter was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with George Smith and Frances Arnold.[16] [17]

He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and was appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge on 2 October 2012, remaining in office until 2019. From 2006 to 2011, he was Deputy Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council, acting Director from 2007 to 2008 and Head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acids Chemistry from 1994 to 2006. He was also Deputy Director of the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering from 1990 to its closure in 2010.[18] [19]

Education

Winter was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne. He went on to study Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1973. He was awarded a PhD degree, from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, for research on the amino acid sequence of tryptophanyl tRNA synthetase from the bacterium Bacillus stearothermophilus in 1977[20] supervised by Brian S. Hartley.[21] Later, Winter completed a term of post-doctoral fellowship at Imperial College London, and another at the Institute of genetics in University of Cambridge.[22]

Career and research

Following his PhD, Winter completed postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.[23] He continued to specialise in protein and nucleic acid sequencing and became a Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1981. He became interested in the idea that all antibodies have the same basic structure, with only small changes making them specific for one target. Georges J. F. Köhler and César Milstein had won the 1984 Nobel Prize for their work at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in discovering a method to isolate and reproduce individual, or monoclonal, antibodies from among the multitude of different antibody proteins that the immune system makes to seek and destroy foreign invaders attacking the body.[24] These monoclonal antibodies had limited application in human medicine, because mouse monoclonal antibodies are rapidly inactivated by the human immune response, which prevents them from providing long-term benefits.

Winter pioneered a technique to "humanise" mouse monoclonal antibodies; a technique used in the development of Campath-1H  by the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and University of Cambridge scientists.[25] This antibody now looks promising for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Humanized monoclonal antibodies form the majority of antibody-based drugs on the market today and include several blockbuster antibodies, such as Keytruda.

Winter founded Cambridge Antibody Technology in 1989,[26] [27] and Bicycle Therapeutics.[28] [29] He worked on the Scientific Advisory Board of Covagen,[30] [31] (now part of Cilag) and is also the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for Biosceptre International Limited.

In 1989, Winter was a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology, one of the early commercial biotech companies involved in antibody engineering. One of the most successful antibody drugs developed was HUMIRA (adalimumab), which was discovered by Cambridge Antibody Technology as D2E7, and developed and marketed by Abbott Laboratories. HUMIRA, an antibody to TNF alpha, was the world's first fully human antibody,[32] which went on to become the world's top selling pharmaceutical with sales of over $18Bn in 2017[33] Cambridge Antibody Technology was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2006 for £702m.[34]

In 2000, Winter founded Domantis to pioneer the use of domain antibodies, which use only the active portion of a full-sized antibody. Domantis was acquired by the pharmaceutical GlaxoSmithKline in December 2006 for £230 million.[35] [36]

Winter subsequently founded another company, Bicycle Therapeutics Limited as a start up company which is developing very small protein mimics based on a covalently bonded hydrophobic core.[37]

Awards and honours

Winter was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990[38] and awarded the Royal Medal by the society in 2011 "for his pioneering work in protein engineering and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, and his contributions as an inventor and entrepreneur".[39] He was given the Scheele Award in 1994.

In 1995, Winter won several international awards including the King Faisal International Prize for Medicine (Molecular Immunology) and in 1999, the Cancer Research Institute William B. Coley Award. Winter was formerly the Joint Head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic acid Chemistry-Biotechnology, and was Deputy Director,[40] at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, an institution funded by the UK Medical Research Council. He was also Deputy Director of the MRC's Centre for Protein Engineering until its absorption into the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.[41] Winter was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1997 and Knight Bachelor in 2004. He served as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2012 to 2019.[42] [43] In 2015 he received the Wilhelm Exner Medal.[44]

Along with George Smith, Winter was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on 3 October 2018 for his work on phage displays for antibodies (while Frances Arnold received the other half of the prize that same year "for the directed evolution of enzymes"). In 2020 he was featured on The Times 'Science Power List'.[45] [46]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: EMBO MEMBER: Gregory P. Winter. people.embo.org .
  2. Web site: Doctor Gregory P. WINTER | Jeantet. 1 October 2017.
  3. Web site: Announcement of the Prince Mahidol Award 2016 . princemahidolaward.org . 13 June 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171114145308/http://www.princemahidolaward.org/display-news.en.php?id=2016-11-16%2014:45:59 . 14 November 2017 . dead .
  4. Web site: 6 October 2018 . Sir Gregory P. Winter – Facts – 2018 . NobelPrize.org . Nobel Media AB . 6 October 2018.
  5. The Scientific Founders of Bicycle Therapeutics Ltd. – Christian Heinis and Sir Greg Winter, FRS.
  6. 10.1038/348552a0 . 2247164 . 1990 . McCafferty . J. . John McCafferty . Griffiths . A. . Winter . G. . Greg Winter . Chiswell . D. . David Chiswell . Phage antibodies: filamentous phage displaying antibody variable domains . 348 . 6301 . 552–554 . Nature . 1990Natur.348..552M. 4258014 .
  7. Web site: Trinity College Cambridge. https://web.archive.org/web/20120306054554/http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=176&conid=87. dead. 6 March 2012.
  8. 8011287 . 1994 . Winter . G . Making antibodies by phage display technology . Annual Review of Immunology . 12 . 433–455 . Griffiths . A. D. . Hawkins . R. E. . Hoogenboom . H. R. . 10.1146/annurev.iy.12.040194.002245.
  9. 8045255 . 1994 . Griffiths . A. D. . Isolation of high affinity human antibodies directly from large synthetic repertoires . The EMBO Journal . 13 . 14 . 3245–60 . Williams . S. C. . Hartley . O . Tomlinson . I. M. . Waterhouse . P . Crosby . W. L. . Kontermann . R. E. . Jones . P. T. . Low . N. M.. Allison. T. J. . 395221. 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1994.tb06626.x .
  10. 1908075 . 1991 . Hoogenboom . H. R. . Multi-subunit proteins on the surface of filamentous phage: Methodologies for displaying antibody (Fab) heavy and light chains . Nucleic Acids Research . 19 . 15 . 4133–4137 . Griffiths . A. D. . Johnson . K. S. . Chiswell . D. J. . Hudson . P. . Winter . G. . 328552 . 10.1093/nar/19.15.4133.
  11. Anon . 10.1038/nbt.1815 . 21390009 . The inventor of humanized monoclonal antibodies and cofounder of Cambridge Antibody Technology, Greg Winter, muses on the future of antibody therapeutics and UK life science innovation . . 29 . 3 . 190 . 2011. 205275386 . free .
  12. 10.1038/292072a0 . 7278968 . Nucleotide sequence of the haemagglutinin gene of a human influenza virus H1 subtype . Nature . 292 . 5818 . 72–5 . 1981 . Winter . G. . Greg Winter . Fields . S. . Stanley Fields (biologist) . Brownlee . G. G. . George Brownlee . 1981Natur.292...72W. 4312205 .
  13. 10.1038/290213a0 . 7010182 . Structure of the neuraminidase gene in human influenza virus A/PR/8/34 . . 290 . 5803 . 213–7 . 1981 . Fields . S. . Stanley Fields (biologist) . Winter . G. . Greg Winter . Brownlee . G. G. . George Brownlee . 1981Natur.290..213F. 8051512 .
  14. 10.1038/332323a0 . 3127726 . Reshaping human antibodies for therapy . Nature . 332 . 6162 . 323–7 . 1988 . Riechmann . L. . Clark . M. . Waldmann . H. . Winter . G. . 1988Natur.332..323R. 4335569 . free .
  15. 10.1016/0022-2836(91)90498-U . 1748994 . By-passing immunization . . 222 . 3 . 581–97 . 1991 . Marks . J. D. . Hoogenboom . H. R. . Bonnert . T. P. . McCafferty . J. . Griffiths . A. D. . Winter . G..
  16. Web site: Live blog: direction evolution takes chemistry Nobel prize . 3 October 2018.
  17. News: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 – live . 3 October 2018. The Guardian . 3 October 2018 .
  18. Web site: Sir Gregory Winter Chairman. https://web.archive.org/web/20120129160435/http://www.f-star.com/scientific_advisors/3/sir-gregory-winter-chairman. dead. 29 January 2012.
  19. Web site: Greg Winter wins 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . 7 October 2018 . 3 October 2018.
  20. PhD . University of Cambridge . The amino acid sequence of tryptophanyl RNA synthetase from bacillus stearothermophilus . Gregory Paul . Winter . 1976 . 500591023 . .
  21. Winter . G. P. . Hartley . B. S. . The amino acid sequence of tryptophanyl tRNA Synthetase fromBacillus stearothermophilus . FEBS Letters . 80 . 2 . 1977 . 340–342 . 0014-5793 . 10.1016/0014-5793(77)80471-7 . 891985. 39202845 . free . 1977FEBSL..80..340W .
  22. Web site: King Faisal Prize Professor Sir Gregory P. Winter. kingfaisalprize.org. en-US. 2018-10-04.
  23. Web site: Scientific Advisory Board . Heptares . 5 April 2013.
  24. Web site: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1984 . NobelPrize.org . 7 October 2018.
  25. Web site: Therapeutic Antibodies – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . 7 October 2018.
  26. Web site: Greg Winter. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
  27. Web site: Sir Gregory Winter | Royal Society.
  28. Web site: Gregory Winter . Gregory Winter: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek . Bloomberg BusinessWeek . 8 May 2001 . 5 April 2013.
  29. Web site: www.bicycletherapeutics.com . bicycletherapeutics.com . 10 December 2012 . 5 April 2013.
  30. Web site: Covagen AG | September 2011: Sir Gregory Winter joins Covagen's Scientific Advisory Board . Covagen.com . 20 September 2011 . 5 April 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120426054658/http://www.covagen.com/index.php?id=113 . 26 April 2012 . dead .
  31. Web site: Covagen AG | Scientific Advisory Board . Covagen.com . 5 April 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120426054844/http://www.covagen.com/index.php?id=114 . 26 April 2012 . dead .
  32. 10.1038/nbt0407-380 . 17420735 . Billion dollar babies—biotech drugs as blockbusters . . 25 . 4 . 380–2 . 2007 . Lawrence . Stacy. 205266758 .
  33. Web site: Global Pharmaceutical 2017 Industry Statistics . 3 October 2018 . 3 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181003220958/http://www.hardmanandco.com/docs/default-source/newsletters/global-pharmaceuticals---2017-industry-stats---april-2018.pdf . dead .
  34. http://www.astrazeneca.com/media/latest-press-releases/2006/5266?itemId=3891617 http://www.astrazeneca.com/media/latest-press-releases/2006/5266?itemId=3891617
  35. Web site: GSK snaps up Domantis to move into biotech field. 9 December 2006. The Independent.
  36. http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Newspublications/News/MRC003436 GSK is to buy Domantis – a company based on discoveries by MRC scientists
  37. Heinis . C. . Rutherford . T. . Freund . S. . Winter . G. . 2009 . Phage-encoded combinatorial chemical libraries based on bicyclic peptides . 10.1038/nchembio.184 . 19483697 . . 5 . 7 . 502–507. free .
  38. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20151117013423/https://royalsociety.org/people/gregory-winter-12548/ . 17 November 2015 . Sir Gregory Winter CBE FMedSci FRS. . London .
  39. Web site: Royal Society announces 2011 Copley Medal recipient . Royal Society . 23 February 2012 . 12 December 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131212203738/http://royalsociety.org/news/RS-announces-2011-Copley/ . dead .
  40. Web site: LMB Structure. https://web.archive.org/web/20080223202412/http://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/admin.html. dead. 23 February 2008.
  41. Web site: Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering . 11 February 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100828110110/http://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/about/who/advisory.htm . 28 August 2010 .
  42. Web site: Sir Gregory Winter CBE FRS appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University . 10 Downing Street . 16 December 2011 . 5 April 2013.
  43. Web site: Master of Trinity College, Cambridge &' events . https://archive.today/20120712215150/http://news.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/2011/12/16/master-of-trinity-college-cambridge/ . dead . 12 July 2012 . University of Cambridge . 5 April 2013 .
  44. https://www.wilhelmexner.org/medalists/sir-gregory-winter/ Sir Gregory Winter
  45. News: Franklin-Wallis. Oliver. 23 May 2020. From pandemics to cancer: the science power list. en. The Times. 2020-05-26. 0140-0460.
  46. Web site: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018. 2023-09-09.

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