On February 27, 2008 Sir Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, delivered the first KEIO 15O/UK-Japan 2008 British Nobel Laureate Lecture at the British Embassy in Tokyo.

Sir Paul’s lecture focused on "Great Ideas of Biology": the cell, the gene, evolution by natural selection, and life as chemistry. He also proposed that "biology as an organized system," in which the study of biology will move from intuitive logic to abstract thinking, much as physics has moved from Newton’s laws to quantum mechanics, will become one of tomorrow’s great ideas.

The British Nobel Laureate Lecture Series, a collaboration between Keio University and the British Embassy, commemorates the 150th anniversaries of the founding of Keio University, and the initiation of UK- Japan diplomatic relations. Four lectures, delivered by top British scientists, will be held between February and July 2008, forming part of Keio's 150th Anniversary Commemorative Project and UK-JAPAN 2008.