Why did you become a scientist?
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Ever since I was about seven years old, I've always wanted to be a physician. I think this is because my father, who was a bishop of the Anglican Episcopal Church in China, had often mused to himself that he would perhaps prefer to save bodies rather than to save souls. When I got into medical school, I realized that saving bodies and preventing people from dying was only one aspect of medicine, and that there was so much more to it. And I discovered that I loved doing research and that led me to a field which was just the right kind of field for me because it turned out that I wasn't very good at looking at very sick bodies. The first time I saw a very elderly, sick man in bed with lots of bedsores, I got pretty ill and decided that perhaps that wasn't the right goal for me. So research really became the answer.
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Whom do you most admire, and why?
“'Remember,' she said, 'that when you get to that position, remember that you are still a woman.'”
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As I get older, I realize that the person who's had the most impact on me professionally and whom I admire tremendously is Polly Bunting. She was a microbiologist. She received her Ph.D. when she had two little children, and was very soon after widowed. And in her time, she really did have to go out and work and she became the President of Radcliffe College. She's given me tremendous advice over my career. She said to me very early on, "Keep your eye on your goals. Don't get sidetracked, don't get on too many committees, and don't get too involved in all these gender studies." And then she said what was probably most important. She said, "Get to your position when you can really do some good. As a young assistant professor, you're not going to be able to have much power or do anything. But as you become a professor, you will be able to be much more helpful to other people. But," she said, "Remember, that when you get to that position, remember that you are still a woman." And I thought she was very wise because she realized that in order for me to succeed, it's very likely that I would have adapted myself to the assumptions and the behavior patterns that the people around me had, which would be mostly men. And that when I became a professor, I might really have forgotten that I was still a woman.
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What are the key developments in your field?
“It's really been fun to be part of a discovery process that I now can see has major impacts already.”
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It's really been fun to be part of a discovery process that I now can see has major impacts already. In the 1970s, we were just beginning to purify viruses and discovered that they contained genetic information of all different kinds. Now we had all been taught that DNA contained genetic information in all of our cells and in living organisms. But with these viruses, we found that some of them had other kinds of nucleic acids and therefore we worked out at that time the transfer of information between these different nucleic acids. Now we find that we can use what we know about their genetic information and incorporate other genes into them so that they can become carriers for inserting new information into cells. And this is right now at the forefront of the development of antivirals, the possibility that we will be able to develop genes into cells that would help change a diseased cell or a cancerous cell.
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What advice do you have for young people?
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I think getting into research is one of the most exciting careers that one can have. It opens up so many doors. You not only have the possibility of discovering something that would really help mankind, you also have the pleasure of interacting with young people, of teaching them and the passing on new information to them.
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How would you like to be remembered?
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I don't ever try to really guess how history is going to look on different individuals. I hope that those who are alive will remember me with love.
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