Pursuing Practical Science

Courtesy of Anthony Watts  Anthony WattsProfessor of biochemistry aand Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford;Director, National Biological Solid State NMR Facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory;Managing editor, European Biophysics Journal Early indications: I've always been interested in science. As a boy, I asked for chemistry sets for presents, was interested in physics and reveled in math. I worked in my spare time fixing electrical goods, giving me a superb start in life with ... p

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Early indications: I've always been interested in science. As a boy, I asked for chemistry sets for presents, was interested in physics and reveled in math. I worked in my spare time fixing electrical goods, giving me a superb start in life with ... practical science. By the time I was 18, I had a good idea that I wanted to combine the quantitative nature of physics with the complexities of biology. I got my degree and never considered anything else but research.

Pivotal paper: I suppose my most recognized paper is from my time as an independent researcher in Oxford on the characterization of a new protein (A.G.D. Tse et al., "A glycophospholipid tail at the carboxyl terminus of Thy-1 glycoprotein of neurons and thymocytes," Science, 230:1003-8, 1985).

Mentors of merit: My high school physics teacher, Ron Meredith, inspired me to take a scientific career, but Peter Knowles, my ...

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