I also found out that I liked biochemical research and that I could do it.
I chose biochemistry as my major and graduated after 4 years with an Honours degree in Biochemistry. During that time, I had come to love biochemistry research, although I was just getting my feet wet in laboratory research.
Biology is far from understanding exactly how a single cell develops into a baby, but research suggests that human development can ultimately be explained in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. Most scientists would make a similar statement about evolution.
Chemically speaking or biologically, we research things, but we don't know half of them. We only know our half of it - symbolically - and we don't know ourselves more than half.
What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
I do worry that as we try to fix this long-term debt and deficit situation that we don't destroy the market incentives for biomedical research. What I fear is the government using its considerable clout to say, 'Here's the price we're setting for your medicines.'
The 1st Congressional District contains almost half of the biotech and biomedical companies in Washington, and my job often allows me to meet the people responsible for this exciting research.
Biomedical research is only as good as its delivery. Distribution of medicines by charities is no more than a stopgap.
Biotech research is incredibly important for health-care innovation.
The way we're really going to grow the economy is to invest in people, to invest in innovation, to have the federal government put money in the kind of research that will create the new high-technology, biotechnology industries that will create the millions of new jobs.
We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.
In 1986, I was asked by the then-Dean of Science at the University of British Columbia, Dr. R.C. Miller, Jr., to establish a new interdisciplinary institute, the Biotechnology Laboratory. I decided that it was time for me to start paying back for the thirty years of fun that I had been able to have in research.
I believe that properly regulated research in stem-cell biotechnology will lead to many valuable improvements in medical treatment and that objections on religious or ethical grounds should be vigorously opposed.
It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words.
I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.
One of my relatives had been asking me on how he could break into AI. For him to learn AI - deep-learning, technically - a lot of facts exist on the Internet, but it is difficult for someone to go and read the right combination of research papers and find blog posts and YouTube videos and figure out themselves on how to learn deep-learning.
The Deep Web contains shockingly valuable information. Can you imagine how cancer research would blossom if every researcher had instant access to every research paper done by every single university and research lab in the world?
Ninety percent of the research comes first. I mostly blunder around reading stuff and talking to smart people until an idea batters or oozes its way through to my narrative brain.
It is time my colleagues got real. All British universities doing worthwhile research use animals, and, instead of hiding, they should be boasting of their achievements.
Venture-capital firms invest in trends by projecting returns. But most projections are pretty much bogus, and research shows that experts are no better at predicting the future than dart-throwing monkeys.