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The Nobel laureate predicts the fate of the UK’s Centre for Medical Research and Innovation if this year’s election brings a change of government.

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) is planned to be one of the biggest biomedical research centres in the world. Could election of a new government this year lead to it being scaled back?

I don’t think so. UKCMRI is one of the UK’s most important biomedical research initiatives in a generation. I’ve been very pleased to see the Labour government’s strong support of science in recent years and hope that support will continue whichever party wins the election. Strong science is the key to creating wealth and improving the quality of life and health of the nation.

Which research areas do you want UKCMRI to concentrate on?

It will be large enough to cover a very wide range of biological and biomedical research. My own suggestion for a new research initiative is to make greater use of human material for biological investigations. High-throughput DNA sequencing will soon generate a huge amount of information on human genetic variation, which can be used to relate gene variants to differences in physiology and disease. New stem-cell technologies combined with 3D tissue culture systems could allow tissues and organs to be created in vitro, providing possible alternatives to animal models for biomedical investigations. Whole-body imaging is also becoming increasingly sophisticated, and this combined with the development of new chemical markers might allow more physiological studies in humans to be carried out.

What themes have you chosen for your lectures next month at the in London on the great ideas in biology?

The cell as the basic unit of life; the gene as the basis of heredity; evolution by natural selection; and life as chemistry. A potential fifth idea is understanding life as a complex organised system.

Are you still doing your own research?

I’m working on how cells keep track of how big they are. My laboratory has recently discovered a gradient mechanism for measuring cell size which relies on molecules located at the ends of cells. These molecules diffuse through the cell to sensing components at the middle of the cell. As the cell gets bigger, there is a drop in concentration of these molecules there, corresponding to the cell’s size.

You recently made a surprise discovery about your family history. Can you tell us about it?

In 2008 my Green Card application was rejected by the US Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that the details on my birth certificate were inadequate. When I eventually received my full birth certificate, the next few seconds were both unexpected and transforming. The name of my mother on the certificate was the name of the person I thought was my sister. My father may have been a serviceman. I had been brought up by my grandparents and my true origins had been kept from me for half a century. It’s ironic that even though I am a geneticist my family managed to keep my genetic origins secret for so long.