We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.

Scientists need to be prepared to engage, and the best people to engage with are students, ideally from primary school because there's no question that their capacity to work out complex things is extremely good.

There needs to be clearer communication for the public avout how valuable it [animal testing] is

Parents should talk to their children, even when they are babies and can't talk back.

Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.

Women of child-bearing age steadily run out of eggs by the continuous process of cell death. While reading a copy of the Guardian carefully from cover to cover, a normal woman will have lost on average two eggs - while, typically, a normal man will have made 70,000 new sperm.

It is important that legislation keeps pace with scientific progress.