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Influenced by him, and probably even more so by my brother Theodore (a year older than me), I soon became interested in biology and developed a respect for the importance of science and the scientific method.

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.

I became fascinated by the then-blossoming science of molecular biology when, in my senior year, I happened to read the papers by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod on the operon theory.

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.

I've always been interested in science - one of my favourite books is James Watson's 'Molecular Biology of the Gene.'

My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer.

My first ideas of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) arose with my Ph.D. in Edinburgh University in the early 1950s. Supervised by Alan Beatty, my research was based on his work on altering chromosomal complements in mouse embryos.

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.

My father, Emil Palade, was professor of philosophy, and my mother, Constanta Cantemir-Palade, was a teacher. The family environment explains why I acquired early in life great respect for books, scholars and education.

My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.