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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.

The war project at Stanford was essentially completed, and I accepted an offer of an Assistant Professorship at the University of Minnesota, which had a good biochemistry department.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I was studying biochemistry textbooks.

I began studying ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow in Peter Moore's laboratory in 1978.

My introduction to cell cycle control was provided by a clear, scholarly and beautiful seminar given by John Gerhart one afternoon in the summer of 1979.

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 thesis was on kinetics studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. When that was finished, I was granted a British Council Fellowship to work under the supervision of Malcolm Dixon.

I learnt about plants from my father, who was a herbalist and an amateur microscopist.

Best and I worked in the sub-basement of the old medical building day and night. Time, meals, sleep - all were of secondary consideration. We had to get insulin into a form that was refined enough for continued clinical use.