The drive to want to know is innate in people. You cannot influence this. I think in contrast it is harmful if you push kids too far in a particular direction.

The three of us have worked on the development of the small and totally harmless fruit fly, Drosophila. This animal has been extremely cooperative in our hands - and has revealed to us some of its innermost secrets and tricks for developing from a single celled egg to a complex living being of great beauty and harmony. ... None of us expected that our work would be so successful or that our findings would ever have relevance to medicine.

In my age group I don't know a single woman who is as successful as I am. I am the total exception. You can be very proud of it. But you are also very isolated.

I know labs where women refuse to make a coffee for others because they don't want to be seen doing seemingly female things. I think this is stupid. Why not make a coffee, bring a cake? I do it.

I was always trying to look modest and natural. I don't like women who come into the lab and you see immediately that it took them two hours to dress in the morning.

I think women are just as gifted when it comes to science as men are. But I think their wishes and desires are different and this is also shaped by the society in which they live.

It is very important for me to be taken seriously for my science and not for my looks or other personal accomplishments.