When I was about 9 years old, I became very interested in the human body and diseases. In general, I was just curious about the world around me. I think that any sort of curiosity as a child is a good beginning to a career in science because science, at least to me, is a continuous exploration of the unknown.

My grandmother was a chemist. She worked at the Banting Institute in Toronto, and at 44 she died of stomach cancer. I never met my grandmother, but I carry on her name - her exact name, Eva Vertes - and I like to think I carry on her scientific passion, too.

Muscle is constantly being used - constantly being damaged. If every time we tore a muscle or every time we stretched a muscle or moved in a wrong way, cancer occurred - I mean, everybody would have cancer almost.

It is becoming clear that many diseases - especially cancer - are highly complex and may respond better to a multi-drug approach which targets many different aspects of a disease process.