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.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
What I am primarily is a neurogeneticist: I use genetics to study problems in neurobiology. The one problem I study primarily... understanding of the sense of touch.
One thing I liked about being in microscopy is it gets you out of your box constantly because there's such a diverse range of applications.
It doesn't matter whether it is chemistry or immunology or neuroscience: I just do research on what I find interesting.
I've always been interested in science - one of my favourite books is James Watson's 'Molecular Biology of the Gene.'
For a decade, I had been studying a transparent worm, the C. elegans. I immediately thought, if you could put the G.F.P. gene into C. elegans, you'd then be able to see biological processes in live animals. Until then, we had to kill them and prepare their tissues chemically to visualize proteins or active genes within cells.
Experimental science is fascinating, but I don't want to do it. I want other people to do it, and I'll read about it.
By then, I was making the slow transition from classical biochemistry to molecular biology and becoming increasingly preoccupied with how genes act and how proteins are made.
A lot of my work involves instilling objects with the power of touch - a transference of soul, spirit, energy through actions.
All of my books tend to be about things going on in labs that you wouldn't really expect.
Touch a scientist and you touch a child.