Lancaster Royal
Grammar School

Nobel Prize Awarded to Former Pupil Sir Peter Ratcliffe

Sir Peter Ratcliffe, former pupil of LRGS between 1965 and 1971, has been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. 

At LRGS the young Sir Peter achieved outstanding A-level results in Maths, Physics and Chemistry and was awarded an Open Scholarship to Gonville and Caius, University of Cambridge.

Announced today, the prize has also been awarded to William Kaelin Jr and Gregg Semenza.

Oxygen is essential in helping us convert food into energy. This year’s three Nobel laureates have received their award for discovering how cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen availability and identifying molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.

According to the Nobel Prize website: “The seminal discoveries by this year’s Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life’s most essential adaptive processes. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function. Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases”.

Headmaster, Dr Chris Pyle, said; “We are delighted that Sir Peter Ratcliffe has been awarded this prestigious prize in recognition of his ground breaking work at the Crick Institute.  I hope that his success will provide great inspiration for all our young scientists at Lancaster Royal Grammar School."