When Stelios Papadopoulos, aka the Godfather of biotech, was asked why he loves biotech, he said:

“What intrigues me the most is this whole process of taking a casual idea in the lab. Sometimes you sit with a cup of coffee and you say, gee, how about this? And then, twenty-five years later, there’s somebody with kidney cancer who responds to a drug…

That only happened because of this unique interplay of scientists, drug developers, clinical scientists, people betting money on stocks, people who build companies, regulators, journalists, writers, and movie makers.

It’s a fascinating laboratory that’s multidisciplinary and highly complex.

And all of this, in the end, is for something good. Lives are saved, pain is relieved.

I don’t think there’s anything more fascinating than this in life.

There is fascinating stuff, eg. understanding string theory. It’s intellectually, and potentially satisfying, but it’s hard to see the immediate positive effect on human life…”

(From Nature Biotechnology’s First Rounders Podcast with Brady Huggett)