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There's always something that an engineer can do to make microscopes better.

I love films for the fact that it is like working under a microscope. It is sort of like a laboratory.

For me, it's very interesting to take one object and really dissect it to as many layers as possible.

We have all kinds of limitations as human beings. I mean we can't see the whole electromagnetic spectrum; we can't see the very small; we can't see the very far. So we compensate for these short comings with technological scaffoldings. The microscope allows us to extend our vision into the micro-sphere.

Indeed, we often mark our progress in science by improvements in imaging.

Everything I did in high school was focused on microbiology, looking at things like algae under a microscope for hours on end. When I was 13, I saved up $100 to buy a good used microscope. I was obsessed with microorganisms.

Mainly I study the sense of touch and what the molecules are that transduce touch. And I use mutants in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to look at that problem.

I got bored with the topic; I felt this was 19th century physics. I was wondering if there was still something profound that could be made with light microscopy. So I saw that the diffraction barrier was the only important problem that had been left over.

I also found out that I liked biochemical research and that I could do it.