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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

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Kirsty Young

Nancy Rothwell

Desert Island Discs: Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell

Dame Professor Nancy Rothwell

04/01/2015

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell

Kirsty Young interviews Prof Dame Nancy Rothwell.

Kirsty Young interviews Prof Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of Manchester University.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the scientist, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, who is best known for her work in the field of neuroscience and stroke research. She is now President and Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University.
She claims that her decision to enrol at Queen Elizabeth College in London in the '70s was made not on the basis of their superior teaching on the function of living systems, but rather the institution's proximity to Kensington High Street. Anyway, she gained a first class degree and then bagged a PhD in just two years.

Could it be that her interest in how we keep the human body alive and functioning began when, aged eight, she contracted primary tuberculosis and was so ill she spent 18 months at home?

She says, "Like most academics my fate was sealed during my PhD, I fell in love with research and vowed I would do it until retirement. I was also sure that I would do my utmost to avoid any of those nasty administrative jobs."

Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.

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