A Conversation with Pierre Joliot-Curie

Pierre Joliot-Curie, Professor of Biology at the Collège de France and former Director of the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), talks about his life and career with Jean-David Rochaix, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Geneva. Dr. Joliot-Curie, whose grandparents Pierre and Marie Curie and parents Frédéric Joliot and Irène Curie were all Nobel Prize laureates, discusses his love of research, which he equates to an "artistic" endeavor and an adventure. He recounts his beginnings, growing up as a "poor student" in a scientific family, and how his father encouraged him to study biology rather than physics. He also explains how he came to develop instruments to study his chosen subject, photosynthesis. As a mentor, Dr. Joliot-Curie encouraged younger generations of researchers to have fun with their work by giving them large degrees of freedom.