When I began playing around at being a physical chemist, I enjoyed very much doing work on the structure of DNA molecules, something which I would never have dreamed of doing before I started.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I started doing experiments - mostly in organic chemistry, because it was so much more interesting - in my mother's laundry at home.
But while doing that I'd been following a variety of fields in science and technology, including the work in molecular biology, genetic engineering, and so forth.
I also found out that I liked biochemical research and that I could do 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.
My special fascination has been to understand better the world of chemistry and its complexities.
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.
I had no idea when I went to college what I'd be doing. I took organic chemistry and did terribly, but I was good in English and art. I took many courses and participated in as many activities as I could. I learned a lot about every single thing.
From an early age, I knew I would become a scientist. It may have been my brother Sam's doing. He interested me in the laws of falling bodies when I was ten and helped my father equip a basement chemistry lab for me when I was fifteen. I became skilled in the synthesis of selenium halides.
From my earliest days I had a passion for science.
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.
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