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My mother, whose interest in chemistry was rather minimal, nevertheless went to graduate school in the subject and married my father, for whom it was as important as life itself.

This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case.

When my mother died, it sort of put a damper on things. My career didn't have the same significance or excitement. It had always been about doing well for my family - my brothers, sisters, father, mother. Then something interesting and important happened - I started doing things for me.

For years following the death of my mother, I wanted to write about her. I started writing what I thought of as personal essays about growing up as her child, but I never could finish any of them. I think I was too close to that loss, and too eager to try and resolve things, to make her death make sense.

I fell in love with science and decided to continue for my Ph.D., and from there on, I was a scientist.

An unexpected benefit of my career in biochemistry has been travel.

My interest in science had many roots. Some came from my mother as she finished her B.A. degree studies in college while I was in my early teens.

I chose biochemistry as my major and graduated after 4 years with an Honours degree in Biochemistry. During that time, I had come to love biochemistry research, although I was just getting my feet wet in laboratory research.

My father was on the faculty in the Chemistry Department of Harvard University; my mother had one year of graduate work in physics before her marriage.