You have said that when you first started researching your PhD you found the real world experiments slow and difficult and nearly gave up to study something else, is that true?
Yes it is true. What I meant by that was that I wasn’t sure I was very good at it. You don’t realise how hard experiments are when you’re an undergraduate. I thought about taking a more hands off approach, but that would have been wrong. Halfway through my PhD I realised I did enjoy it.

How has your career evolved with regards to your research work?
Until I was about 35 years old, I was doing all the experiments myself. From 35 I spent five years running a research group, gradually reducing the amount of experiment work I did. From 40 onwards I ran institutions and departments. Now I spend about half my time running the Rockefeller University and about half on outside interests, some pure science, some politics of science.

How are you finding your new role as president of Rockefeller?
It’s very exciting. It’s a small research university, with a faculty of only 73, but it has eight Nobel laureates.

How does it compare to running a charity like Cancer Research UK?
Cancer Research was effectively a research institute, so they’re actually quite similar, in effect academic research. The fundraising is slightly different, before we had to raise a certain amount of money each year and I had a dedicated team who worked extremely hard, with a lot coming from many small individual donors. Now it tends to be more a case of speaking to fewer, wealthy individuals, but the need to fund raise is the same.

Can you briefly explain the research work you’re currently involved in?
I’m interested in genomic and post-genomic approaches to the way DNA replication is controlled in cells. My current work involves looking at the role of the cytoskeleton in determining the spatial organisation of the cell, among other things. I have two teams of six people, one team in London, one in New York. I talk to each of the members every couple of days.

Do you think biology is at a turning point now?
I think we have been at a turning point for nearly 30 years. I came into biology in the seventies, during the bio-molecular revolution, which I became a part of, and we’ve spent 20 years working out much about so many of the world’s diseases. Now we have the challenge of processing the data we are able to gather and working out how diseases actually work. So yes, we are at a turning point, another turning point, which is what makes this area so exciting.

What role does serendipity play?
The human mind is powerful, we can imagine many worlds that don’t exist and it’s tempting to try and force reality to meet those views. I think you have to keep real things close and follow where nature takes you. If you set up experiments to test things you already know, then you can learn nothing, but if you let nature show you, and follow, then in that sense, serendipity might play a role.

Is there a spiritual element to your work? You are working with the building blocks of life.
The world is awe-inspiring, looking at a cell and watching it grow and divide is amazing to me. Scientists over centuries have been inspired by it. But that’s as close I get, I don’t have an organised spiritual belief as such.

What advice would you offer people at the start of a research career or considering it as an option?
Graduate academic research is fantastic for those who really want to do it. You get to behave like a child and engage your curiosity for your whole life. But not everyone can remain enthusiastic their whole working lives, so it’s not for everyone. Do what fascinates you, what you’re passionate about. Follow what you’re interested in, don’t follow the funding. And if you’re working in clinical research, make sure you keep close to the patient.

What are important attributes to have?
Curiosity, rigour, a scepticism of your own ideas and an adherence to observation and experiment.

You have been knighted and won a Nobel prize, what’s next?
I have two objectives. One is to provide an environment for younger scientists to work and help them, and as long as I’m still able to make significant contributions, I want to continue the scientific enterprise.