As far back as I remember, and earlier, I was an artisan, a maker and doer. Mechanically minded, my parents said.
Whilst worthy in themselves, applications shouldn't be the only way to drive basic research.
Biomedical research is only as good as its delivery. Distribution of medicines by charities is no more than a stopgap.
Muriel, my mother, was my main confidant. She was a teacher of English at Watford grammar school but took a break while my sister Madeleine and I were children. She held court in the kitchen, and we talked about everything.
When it came to choice of subjects, science was obvious - since I was uninterested in anything else - but a decision that caused consternation in some eyes was my demand to take biology for A-level.
The fact is that proprietary databases don't work for such basic and broadly needed information as the sequence of the human genome.
Many people thought that, given my knowledge of the egg, I should analyse embryonic mutants.
The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.
Our work on C. elegans emphasized the benefits of sharing large amounts of information. We took a global approach to discover the mechanisms that led to the development of the worm.
It was a matter of not living lavishly but enjoying what you had, growing things with your hands, working hard, but not being tied to a nine-to-five job, and generally feeling that there's more to life than money.
It is not a Pandora's box that science opens; it is, rather, a treasure chest. We, humanity, can choose whether or not to take out the discoveries and use them, and for what purpose.
In order to protect the market value of a proprietary database, the owner must prohibit redistribution of the contents - otherwise, the information would quickly leak out and be widely known.
