The promise and thrill of discovery are what keep scientists going in spite of endless frustration.

Question: What research being conducted at Cold Spring Harbor Lab excites you the most?

Gregory Hannon: Well, personally to me, what’s exciting about research is the moment of discovery.  I think for most scientists it’s what addicts you to this; the idea that for just a few minutes you know something that nobody else in the world knows.  And it doesn’t happen often because science is really a sort of an exercise in banging your head against the wall over and over again.  Scientists need a very high tolerance for failure and frustration because most experiments do fail.  But when something really works, and you really learn something fundamentally new, it’s something that I think I’ve never experienced in any other way.

Recorded on February 9, 2010