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

At the time I finished high school, I was determined to study biology, deeply convinced to eventually be a researcher.

During this period, I became interested in how the new techniques of cloning and sequencing DNA could influence the study of genetics and I was an early and active proponent of the Human Genome Sequencing Project.

My interests span biology, though sometimes I feel like an anachronism, somebody from the Victorian era when there weren't so many boundaries dividing the sciences.

I started taking a basic biology course, and I really loved it. I started asking research questions incessantly. I was drawn very quickly to biology.

At the National Institute for Medical Research, I came into contact with biological scientists and formed collaborative projects with several of them. In particular, George Popjak and I shared an interest in cholesterol.

At Berkeley I had my first encounter with real professional scientists.

My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology.

Perhaps arising from a fascination with animals, biology seemed the most interesting of sciences to me as a child.

I didn't study science beyond high school level, but I'd been reading a lot of science books by people like Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley and Daniel Dennett. I also spent a year working on a fellowship in a research centre - the Allan Wilson Centre - where I got a hands-on look at their work sequencing DNA.