Episode Details

Frederick Sanger won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, a feat matched by almost no one in history. He sequenced the amino acids of insulin and then developed the method that made DNA sequencing possible. He did all of this with so little fanfare that most people have never heard his name.

This episode tells the story of the most self-effacing genius in the history of science and the two breakthroughs that changed biology forever.

• How he determined the amino acid sequence of insulin
• The Sanger sequencing method and why it unlocked the human genome
• His two Nobel Prizes and what they recognized
• Why he turned down a knighthood and preferred to be called a chap who messed about in his lab