A Swedish newspaper reporter called and said, You've been awarded the Prize. I was quite sure it was a practical joke.

I was making a lot of momentous personal decisions. I was still very very young: when the prize was awarded, I was 33; the work I had done when I was 21.

I get curious about new things. My real strength is going into a field that has not been investigated before, and finding new approaches to it.

As soon as you go into any biological process in any real detail, you discover it's open-ended in terms of what needs to be found out about it.

If we have isolated individuals able to inflict enormous harm, imagine what a single lunatic can do with a nuclear weapon. I think the whole base of civil society is at risk.

Although I am a public figure, I'm still a little shy. I don't think my own personality is important. I prefer to keep some small dosage of privacy.