Tonegawa Quotes & Sayings

I see myself as a scientist who is interested in what's going on inside of us. — Susumu Tonegawa

Film is the ultimate canvas, the elixir of art, and the magic of life. — A.D. Posey

When General Motors builds a car, they want to meet the specific needs of many customers. But if they custom-make each car, then it will not be economical. — Susumu Tonegawa

The brain is hugely complicated, and because it is so complicated, it requires multidisciplinary research. — Susumu Tonegawa

The rivers rose, and, when they receded, sucked more of the fertile soil back down with them, to run down the Pedernales to the Colorado, down the Colorado to the Gulf. And — Robert A. Caro

Although we often discussed the idea of research on the nature of antigen recognition by T cells in the laboratory in the late Seventies while I was still in Basel, the real work did not start until the early Eighties in my new laboratory at M.I.T. — Susumu Tonegawa

Vaccinations are the application of evolutionary principles in action. If we can control the contact made between pathogen and lymphocyte populations, we can go a long way toward eliminating disease.108 It doesn't require total annihilation but rather a control on population dynamics. Vaccines are the way we use selective cloning to keep a pathogenic population in a state of benign coexistence. The process is based on evolution, as pointed out by Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa: Genes can mutate and recombine. These dynamic characteristics of genetic material are essential elements of evolution. Do they also play an important role during the development of a single multicellular organism? Our results strongly suggest that this is the case for the immune system. — Greg Graffin

The brain is probably the most mysterious subject there is. — Susumu Tonegawa

My scientific career has developed on three continents: Asia, Europe and North America. — Susumu Tonegawa

In the early Seventies, the technology for purifying a specific eukaryotic mRNA was just becoming available. — Susumu Tonegawa

When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels run out; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions. — Friedrich Schiller

It doesn't matter whether it is chemistry or immunology or neuroscience: I just do research on what I find interesting. — Susumu Tonegawa

After I arrived in Basel, I initially attempted to continue the project of my days in Dulbecco's laboratory, namely, the transcriptional control of the simian virus 40 genes. — Susumu Tonegawa

Recalling a memory is not like playing a tape recorder. It's a creative process. — Susumu Tonegawa

Whatever is not nailed down is mine." This is the motto of the exploiter. "Whatever can be pried loose is not nailed down." This is the second maxim in a country where people are rich, caring little in their present prosperity what shall become of the future. — David Starr Jordan

Every person receives two educations in life; one they receive from others, and; more importantly, the one they give themselves. — Charles MacAlister

Our study showed that the false memory and the genuine memory are based on very similar, almost identical, brain mechanisms. It is difficult for the false memory bearer to distinguish between them. — Susumu Tonegawa

Independent of what is happening around you in the outside world, humans constantly have internal activity in the brain. — Susumu Tonegawa

At the suggestion of Professor Itaru Watanabe, and with his help, I left Japan at the age of twenty-three to pursue graduate study at the University of California at San Diego. — Susumu Tonegawa

I became fascinated by the then-blossoming science of molecular biology when, in my senior year, I happened to read the papers by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod on the operon theory. — Susumu Tonegawa

Even under normal conditions, how we can distinguish various events, various experiences, and be able to reproduce it later is, of course, a very interesting question and, I think, one that we face in day to day life. — Susumu Tonegawa

Success does not mean happiness. Check out any celebrity magazine to look for examples to disabuse you of thinking that being beautiful, successful or rich will make you happy. — Shawn Achor

Immunologists agreed that an individual vertebrate synthesizes many millions of structurally different forms of antibody molecules even before it encounters an antigen. — Susumu Tonegawa

We found out that, contrary to what many people thought, in the immune system, genes can change during the life cycle of the individual. — Susumu Tonegawa

I commuted to the prestigious Hibiya High School from my uncle's home in Tokyo. During the high school years, I developed an interest in chemistry, so upon graduation, I chose to take an entrance examination for the Department of Chemistry of the University of Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. — Susumu Tonegawa

My father was an engineer working for a textile company that had several factories scattered in rural towns in the southern part of Japan. — Susumu Tonegawa

I decided to pursue graduate study in molecular biology and was accepted by Professor Itaru Watanabe's laboratory at the Institute for Virus Research at the University of Kyoto, one of a few laboratories in Japan where U.S.-trained molecular biologists were actively engaged in research. — Susumu Tonegawa

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten. — Amy Tan

In 1981, after ten years in Basel, I returned to the United States to continue my research on the immune system at the Center for Cancer Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where Director Salvador E. Luria provided me with an excellent laboratory. — Susumu Tonegawa

Humans are very imaginative animals. — Susumu Tonegawa

The water bath has a platform which the rats learn to find because they don't like to get wet. Then you remove the platform. But you don't tell the rats. — Susumu Tonegawa