My brother Joseph, who is 14 years older than me, was already on his national military compulsory service when I was 4 years old, the age from which I remember myself.

Towards the end of the military service, I had to make what I assume has been the most important decision in my career: to start a residency in clinical medicine, in surgery, which was my favorite choice, or to enroll into graduate school and start a career in scientific research. It was clear to me that I was heading for graduate school.

The chances of Israeli science competing with big American science are small. For almost 15 years, we had no competition.

The development of methods to monitor protein dynamics in cells together with the discovery of specific and general lysosomal inhibitors have resulted in the identification of different classes of cellular proteins, long- and short-lived, and the findings of the differential effects of the inhibitors on these groups.