John Sulston Interview (page: 2 / 7) Nobel Prize in Medicine	Print Interview

Was there ever a Eureka moment? A moment when it struck you, "This is going to tell us something!"

John Sulston: No, no. It grew up bit by bit.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. In a way, the Eureka moment came earlier. It was a very small Eureka, but this was when I first saw that I could watch these cell divisions in the living worm. That was the key thing. Many people had looked to try to follow this cell lineage for a whole century, actually, because nematodes have been important and people have looked at them. There was lots of work in Germany a hundred years ago. But they just couldn't go to the limit. They could not, in the end, find out which cells came from which. So when I was able to actually follow a cell division and realize that could give us the whole picture, there was that sense of Eureka. So it wasn't a Eureka of understanding life, but it was a Eureka of knowing I had a viable technique. See? That shows how nerdy I am! I'm a techniques person, really.

During the course of any scientific inquiry, there must be setbacks. Are there any that stand out in your memory, and how did you deal with them?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sulston: There were setbacks. And the thing is, of course, one mostly talks about the things that worked. When you have a real setback, where something won't work -- and one line, for example, which I was following in parallel with this cell lineage business, was to try to use monoclonal antibodies. Cesar Milstein and his co-workers had just invented this monoclonal antibody. It was in lab, where we were, so you can imagine everybody in lab wanted to use it. This was a fantastic new technique. So we were all growing cell lines and making these antibodies, which could mark cells. You see, we could construct these markers to particular products of the body -- of the worm, in our case -- and thereby mark cells and follow through and find out how particular products were produced, and where. And I became very interested in this as well, and I tried to do it. And in the end, it just obviously wasn't going anywhere, as far as I was concerned. There were some other things that other people were doing. But my own particular line just didn't work. So in the end there comes a point where you say, "Well, this line isn't productive for me. I should be doing this other." Which in my case was the cell lineage. And you just clear out your freezer and throw it all away. You have to do that.

There's no point in going on doing something which is simply not working. You should be following lines which are productive. However, you can't do that if the moment you hit the first little failure, you say, "Oh, that's no good. That won't work." You have to really try. And that's, of course, why it's so hard to stop. Because by the time you get to a certain point, you've already invested so much. But you have to say, "No, this is not the way to go." Then you find another growth point in your repertoire of things you're doing, and that's the one you follow.

I think it's a personal balance. Some people are more obstinate and will pursue things for a long way. I know in the case of the cell lineage, people thought I was very obstinate, pursuing it as far as I did. Because many other people were having trouble, so they got stuck. So I guess you also have to have the humility to say, "Well, this is something I personally can do. I'm not getting anywhere with this, but I must follow the line I can do." You're always sort of exploring. It's a game. A society of sorts, comes in very much.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Even though much of science is done by the individual, the progress is societal. And I've always felt -- maybe this is an important part of my own philosophy of it -- I've always felt very much that although I love to get some individual recognition; it's very nice when people pat you on the back and say, "There's a good job!" -- at the same time, I've never felt that anything I was doing stood alone. It only worked because it was in conjunction with other people in terms of sharing the results. So once you see it that way, the blockage is not such a disaster, because so long as you can continue to contribute to the whole progress in a powerful way, then you're very happy, because somebody else can take on what you failed to do yourself. Okay? So it's the combination of individuality and collective endeavor, which I think makes failure much more tolerable. Because it gets in a natural way incorporated into the whole thing.

May we talk about your childhood? What was it like and what were you like?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sulston: Well, like everybody, I don't have accurate memories, but what I do know, my early memories are certainly of being an amateur scientist in some sense. Of just fiddling around and trying to understand things. Taking to pieces and trying to put them back together again with more or less success. So I think I was actually, actually, really wanting to go on that scientific path. And I had no idea where it was going. It was just in me somehow.

What were your parents like?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sulston: My parents were very encouraging of me. They wanted me to have a good education, clearly, but they were not worldly ambitious in any way. My father was an Anglican priest and my mother a schoolteacher. So they had exactly the sorts of qualities that I would value, and maybe it's because of them I value them. Who knows? So I led an easy childhood in a certain way, and was let to carry on and follow my own wishes, really, in what I wanted to do, and was encouraged. But they certainly set high standards in terms of achievement. I was expected not just to play, but to go to school and work, and pass exams. So I had... a strong work imperative as well, I think, was put in there.

John Sulston Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4   5   6   7