Well you know I've done a number of things. For instance, when I was young my mother suggested I play piano. Because actually I was interested and so she encouraged me, and encouraged the teacher who came periodically and so on. And that has been really very interesting. And I don't know, I don't think I reached a stage where I could really perform in a [unintelligible] not at all. But if I had continued in that direction, I might have reached that stage. But I certainly I did not reach it.

I still read a lot. What I read is two main parts. One would be the scientific part, and the other would be just the cultural part. And I like them both, and I divide my time depending how I feel. Sometimes I'm more involved in one type, and so I work on that. And other times I'm involved in the other kind, and then move to that part. So I think it's interesting to have these possibilities so that in life is not.

Renato Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro,Italy, in 1914. He studied medicine in Turin before joining the Italian Resistance movement against Benito Mussolini during theSecond Wold War.

After the war Dulbecco emigrated to the United States and worked with Salvador Luria at the University of Indiana before moving on to the University of California.

Won the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 1964.

Won the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology with David Baltimore and Howard Temin "for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell".