Joshua Lederberg

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

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

Life's a hobby.

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.