It would be hard to make up a fictional character with the personality and intellectual breadth of Paul Nurse, a genetic biologist from a humble English background who became a Nobel Laureate in 2001 — and used some of his prize money to buy a bigger motorcycle. British newspapers have compared him to a soccer superstar, dubbing him "the David Beckham of science."

Earlier this year, Nurse said on PBS' Charlie Rose, where he has been a frequent guest, that what he really would like to do is "figure out how life works." When he says it, the concept has a whole new meaning.

For kicks, Nurse flies an open cockpit, 1930 biplane and threads a glider through the Alps each summer. Since Dec. 1, he's been the president of the prestigious British Royal Society, one of the oldest and most venerable "learned societies" for science in the world.

As one Twitter message summed him up recently, "I just saw Paul Nurse at the Royal Society. Greatness."

Nurse will give the 41st annual J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the White Rock Baptist Church, 80 State Road 4 in White Rock. (Devotees of this annual event should note that this year's lecture is in June rather than August, in a different place and at a slightly different time than usual.)

Now 61, Nurse's life story already has the makings of a Charles Dickens' novel, with a plot that carries the protagonist from the scientific basement to the top of the ivory tower.

To mention just one incredible twist, six years after winning the Nobel Prize, Nurse updated his autobiography with a stunning revision of his family history. He said his application for a green card with the U.S. Homeland Security Department had led to the revelation that his parents were actually his grandparents and the woman he thought was his sister turned out to be his mother.

"Nothing really has changed, although I continue to wonder who my father is," he concluded. "Of course I regret not having had time with my real mother or the opportunity to discuss my origins with her later in life, and then there is the final irony that even though I am a geneticist my family managed to keep my genetic origins secret from me for over half a century."

Nurse's work as a geneticist has focused on how the division and shape of living cells are controlled. He has taken on major administrative responsibilities as well, including serving as CEO of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK and president of The Rockefeller University in New York.

Along with taking over the presidency of the Royal Society, he became chief executive of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation as the year began, a major new initiative in London set to become one of the largest biological research centers in Europe.

Nurse was unable to participate in an interview in recent weeks because of a "bad cold," but there is no shortage of information about him, including a number of articles, videos and interviews on the Internet.

Larry Deaven, a retired biologist from Los Alamos National Laboratory and chairman of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee, said this week that the June date was selected because it was the only time Nurse had available. He said the selection of Nurse was based as usual on scientific accomplishment and the ability to speak to a general audience.

"I have known of his scientific work for over 30 years," Deaven said. "His postdoctoral mentor came to the lab to see the early flow cytometers (cell-counting devices) and the data being produced by them back in the '70s. Several people on the committee saw one or more of the interviews with Nurse on the Charlie Rose show, and they were all impressed, so he became a strong candidate."

Speaking of Nurse's talk on "Great Ideas of Biology," Deaven said, "For many years biology students thought biology was too descriptive, that we didn't know enough about chemistry or physics or math to understand things at the level that physicists understand them."

Now, from Nurse's own work and many other contributions, biology is rapidly coming forth with complex emerging ideas of its own. Nurse takes up some basic ideas, like the cell and the gene, how evolution and natural selection work and the chemical basis of biological activities, but he does it in such a lucid way and with such humanity and good humor that it does not seem like yucky science at all.

"Here is a great biologist who won all these awards and held these prestigious positions, giving a talk for audiences of various backgrounds, trying to give them a view of what biology can really be," said Deaven. "It's kind of an answer to what the typical biology course in high school might have been like for many people."