My father, Kaneki, was a gifted research director of a chemical company, and his profession strongly influenced the path of my life.

Chiral receptor sites in the human body interact only with drug molecules having the proper absolute configuration, resulting in marked differences in the pharmacological activities of enantiomers.

Except for a short period at the end of World War II, I attended an elementary school affiliated to Kobe University from ages six to twelve and then moved on to Nada Middle and High School from ages twelve to eighteen. I enjoyed many out-door activities in my youth.

In 1957, at the age of 18, I entered Kyoto University, which was known to be the most active institution in the research of polymer chemistry.

In a way, I think science is the modern religion, and at times, I despise it as much as I despise other religions because it really will only accept stuff that fits its masculine ability to define the world.

Over the last 25 years, since a lot of science writing became accessible to layman, I've become quite a consumer of science. As a child, I wasn't streamed into science, and I regret that now.

My social media world is detached from my friendship world. I'll have friends in real life that I don't follow on social media, because I don't really look at social media as the way of connecting to friends. For me, social media is like a business tool.

I do have a fantasy piece of technology that would do my food shopping for me, and if you wanted to, you could probably employ a butler or a maid. But I'd like to have a fridge that restocks itself. I don't know what you'd call that - an automatic restocking pantry?