I have also benefited from teaching; as I try to explain my views to students with critical and open minds, I find myself continually being challenged to go back and rethink ideas. I now see teaching and research as complementary, mutually reinforcing activities.

And I realized that to get them I had to figure out how to study. And I did something that has helped me my entire life, and it’s something I still do, which is when I don’t know how to do something now I start reading about it. Back then I would ask people for help.

The questions of the students are often the source of new research.  They often ask profound questions that I’ve thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while.  It wouldn’t do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now.  The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem.  It’s not so easy to remind yourself of these things.

I think that it is necessary to implant in children the love for science from the very beginning, and mostly the love for asking questions about the universe, for example why does the sun rise in the morning? Or what allows life on earth? Why earth is so unique compared to the moon? Or about our own body and evolution: what happened to us?

When we develop blockbuster novel products and the world sits up and takes us seriously, then I would probably sleep peacefully.

I really want to bring an innovative drug to the global market.

My big idea is to marry affordability and access to ensure that we leverage innovation to develop affordable, cutting-edge therapies for chronic diseases.

The only way to de-stress for me is to take one or two days off and then come back.

I faced a number of credibility hurdles linked to gender, youth and the nature of my business venture.

I introspect a lot and keep asking myself questions on what is right and wrong.