By the time I reached high school my father’s grocery store had made our life adequately comfortable and I was able to choose, without any practical encumbrances, the subjects that I wanted to pursue in college.

All the people who do well work very hard. Nobody who has a record of achievement has been lazy about it.

I should mention that while I was growing up, Einstein was presented as a worthy role model for a young boy who was good at his studies.

The chemical details of catalysis by RNase P remain to be fully worked out although a rough picture of this reaction is now available.

However, it was made clear to the first generation of Canadian-born children that the path to opportunity was through education.

At the MRC laboratory I started the work that led to the discovery of RNase P and the enzymatic properties of the RNA subunit of that enzyme.

No sacrifice was too great to forward our education and, fortunately, books and the tradition of study were not unknown in our family.

We soon suggested that the RNA subunit of RNase P was part of the active center of the enzyme, by analogy to the then current picture of the ribosome.

Thus, the pathways leading to the discoveries of RNA catalysis were not as direct as one might imagine from reading about the results in textbooks.

By the time I reached high school my father's grocery store had made our life adequately comfortable and I was able to choose, without any practical encumbrances, the subjects that I wanted to pursue in college.