One of the problems in the biotech world is the lack of women in leadership roles, and I'd like to see that change by walking the walk.

I have always focused on basic research, motivated by a desire to understand the world.

I think that for a lot of women there's a subtle but unfortunately effective discouragement of women pursuing the STEM fields.

I was kind of a nerdy, geeky type. And I loved math. People teased me about it. I felt pretty much like an outcast.

There's already a lot of active research going on using the Crispr technology to fix diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease. They're all diseases that have known genetic causes, and we now have the technology that can repair those mutations to provide, we hope, patients with a normal life.

If more women are in leadership roles, we'll stop assuming they shouldn't be.