Dr. Kersten Hall,
Visiting Fellow, School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds
@monkeynut_coat
Dr. Kersten Hall
After graduating from St. Anne’s College, Oxford with a degree in biochemistry, Kersten Hall returned to his home city of Leeds where he did a PhD in molecular biology. Following several years working as a research fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, he eventually hung up his white coat and swapped the lab for the library to become an honorary fellow in the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science where he now writes about the history of molecular biology and the important, but little known role that textile research in West Yorkshire played in the rise of this powerful field of science.
His book ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ tells the story of little-known physicist William Astbury whose research into wool fibres helped pioneer the science of molecular biology. When it first appeared in 2014, the book was shortlisted for a prize by the British Society for the History of Science and was featured on a list of ‘Books of 2014’ in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper. A revised edition was released in paperback last year including new material on Florence Bell, the scientist who made the very first attempt to study the structure of DNA using X-rays while working in Astbury’s lab at Leeds in 1938.
His most recent book ‘Insulin - the Crooked Timber: A History from Thick Brown Muck to Wall Street Gold’ was published in 2022 to mark the centenary of the discovery of insulin, and has resulted in interviews for the BBC World Service, BBC History Extra as well as coverage in the international science journal ‘Nature’ and the New York Review of Books. He describes the book as a story of the monstrous egos, toxic career rivalries and backstabbing that surrounded this landmark in medicine or, put another way - ‘Game of Thrones’ enacted with lab coats and pipettes, instead of chain mail and poisoned daggers’.