Interviewee: Marshall Nirenberg. Early in his scientific career, Marshall Nirenberg had to decide what project to pursue. Marshall Nirenberg talks about his decision to become a "code-breaker." (DNAi Location: Code > Reading the code > Players > Marshall Nirenberg > Making the decision)

I wanted to work in a field that's a really important field, that I felt was really a superb field. I assessed my chances of success in the field as, as being very low, minimal, I thought it was extremely risky. One time I asked, I, in the evening I saw a young scientist who I thought was probably the best scientist at the NIH working in his lab, and I stopped in on the spur of the moment just to ask his assessment of, I told him what I planned to do, and asked for his reaction. And he just looked at me, he said Marshall, he said, it's suicidal, which confirmed my worst fears. But the, I don't know, the wish to, to explore, the wish to discover was stronger than the fear of failure, and so I thought if I'm not, if ever I'm going to do it, I'd better do it now.

marshall nirenberg,superb field,fear of failure,exploring science,dna code,young scientist,spur of the moment,worst fears,dnai,breaking the code,code breaker,location code,interviewee,nih,one time