There is a danger one has to really be knowing much more because you can't be too narrow on science.

One of the things I enjoy most is to be left alone with a book.

Scientists contribute in a variety of ways and I don't think I can singular one even including [Albert] Einstein, that I can say that he's the best. We don't work like the best basketball player and the best musician and so on. Science is a collective effort.

Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.

I found with my students they don't necessarily look at journals any more, but they print right away from the internet what's relevant to what's he doing you see.

Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious - but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance. Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.

I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoint's and things of that sort. So, I'm an old fashioned still in this regard but these are the moment where I really can be creative, if I am, to be left alone with just a book and piece of paper and to be thinking.