My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina and was left to his own devices at the age of 15. My mother was a teacher, herself the daughter of a poor immigrant family.

As we returned to Argentina, I started seriously to work towards a doctoral degree under the direction of Professor Stoppani, the Professor of Biochemistry at the Medical School.

Back in 1962, when I had by accident become the supervisor of Roberto Celis in Argentina, it occurred to me that antibody diversity might arise from the joining by disulphide bridges of a variety of small polypeptides in combinatorial patterns.

The study of the amino acid sequence around the disulphide bonds of the immunoglobulins was my own short-cut to the understanding of antibody diversity.

My father was a schoolteacher and my mother came from a teacher's family.

Maybe it's just a daughter's job to piss off her mother.