Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

There's a perception out there that the U.K. has become unfriendly to immigrants. Even if that isn't true, the very fact that that is the perception will make people not even want to come.

I think it's important to give young people the freedom to follow their ideas and pursue their interests.

I'm very grateful to have had many brilliant students and post-docs who have worked with me. Potential is often hard to spot, but a key factor is whether they express a genuine interest in the problem and how they have thought about it.

Science is an international enterprise where discoveries in one part of the world are useful in other parts.

The Royal Society view is completely apolitical: it will judge anything based on the evidence. One of the big strengths of the Society is that is it widely perceived as impartial and above the fray. We'd like to make sure it stays that way.

People go into science out of curiosity, not to win awards. But scientists are human and have ambitions.

Even the best scientists are often insecure and feel the need for recognition.

I realise I have inadvertently become a source of inspiration and hope for people in India simply by the fact that I grew up there, went to my local university, but could go on to do well internationally.

There is no room for political, personal or religious ideologies in science.

Governments and scientists in India need to ensure that politics and religious ideology do not intrude into science. They belong to separate spheres, and if they are not kept separate, it is science in India and the country as a whole that will suffer.

We benefit tremendously from the E.U. Britain does very well in getting back E.U. money for the amount it puts in.

I think it is a mistake to judge science by Nobel Prizes.

I think we are intrinsically prone to being irrational and superstitious. A lot of it comes from our fear of the unknown and the fear of a lack of control over our fate.

Like the women in my family, I've found the women in my lab a hard-nosed, ambitious lot who have gone on to be faculty members at top universities. In my own family, it is my father who is prone to bursting into tears.

Nobody has approached me about an offer to work in India. However, I can categorically state that if they did so, I would refuse immediately.

I cannot imagine a more enjoyable place to work than in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology where I work.

There is no magical formula for winning a Nobel Prize.

If you go to a second-rate place, and you are first-rate, it is very difficult to do first-rate work because you do not get that critical feedback you need for first-rate work on a daily basis.

I am still the same person doing the same science. Why are people so impressed when some academy in Sweden gives an award?

You can only go into science because you're interested in it.

If I were to take an undergraduate chemistry exam, I would probably fail.

It's not about where you were born or where you come from that makes you a good scientist. What you need are good teachers, co-students, facilities.

Science today is a highly collaborative exercise, and to convert it into a contest, as the Nobel does, is a bad way to look at science.

Science is curiosity, testing and experimenting.

Ultimately, biological phenomena involve molecules, and understanding them involves understanding the underlying chemistry. In my opinion, this is a particularly exciting area of chemistry.