Pursuing Practical Science

	Courtesy of Anthony Watts
	Anthony Watts Professor 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 ... 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...