Our cells engage in protein production, and many of those proteins are enzymes responsible for the chemistry of life.

I was driven completely by a desire to understand how cells worked.

It is common, and encouraged by many journals, for research to be judged by the impact factor of the journal that publishes it. But as a journal's score is an average, it says little about the quality of any individual piece of research.

The idea that I could push the envelope using dedication and research and endless curiosity has propelled me in my life's work.

I got into science because I thought that, with inspiration and hard work, I could figure out how life works.

When I was a postdoc, I jotted every fresh thought on a three-by-five card and kept them in a card catalogue.