Joshua Lederberg

Life's a hobby.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I was studying biochemistry textbooks.

If you wanted to dissect the structure of living cells, genetic analysis was an extremely powerful method, so my interest turned to that.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

I studied international relations and economics at the University of Virginia. I paid my way by working as a bartender in the summer and at three part-time jobs during the year.

When I see something that I think isn't right, I think I have some kind of, for right or wrong, an obligation to fix it.