Dr. Jack Szostak, one of six McGill alumni who have been awarded with a Nobel Prize in Phisiology or Medicine in 2009, spoke at the university on Friday, delivering the keynote address at the Faculty of Science’s Undergraduate Research Conference.

After the conference’s prize ceremony, Szostak was introduced by Dean of Science Martin Grant, who spoke highly of Szostak’s work and distinction.

“[Dr. Szostak] is the kind of alumnus who makes me proud to be Dean of Science at McGill,” he said.

Szostak spoke briefly about his beginnings — his chemical interests and his time at McGill — and  went on to discuss the progression of his research and the twists and turns of his career.

For four years, Szostak said, he went to the chemistry lab after school as a child. At McGill, he began performing finely controlled chemical experiments.

After graduating, Szostak went on to complete his PhD in biochemistry at Cornell University under Professor Ray Wu’s supervision, and then started his own lab at Harvard Medical School.

The question and answer session that followed was perhaps more valuable to students than the keynote address itself. Szostak answered questions about finding the right research topic and on his life and work after the Nobel Prize.

Szostak stressed the importance of going after “big” questions when trying to consider interesting ideas for research.

“This is the hardest part, and it’s often hard to know what questions are worth asking,” he said.

When asked about how winning the Nobel Prize changed his approach to his work and science in general, Szostak said little had changed—he was still in it for the science, and the goal of answering the biggest question of all in his field: how Darwinian evolution began.

Julie Kaiser, Najla Tabbara, and Alessandra Ricciardi, three U3 students in Microbiology, found the talk stimulating.

“It’s cool how [Szostak] was inspired right here at McGill, how the beginnings of his research began here,” Tabbara said.