This is an interview with Paul Nurse who had been a geneticist and cell biologist at EMBL, In this interview, Paul Nurse especially reflects the differences between scientific research at universities in general and at EMBL. Beyond that, Paul Nurse describes his impressions of the Directors General Lennart Philipson and Iain Mattaj.

This is an interview with the biophysicist Ernst Stelzer who worked at EMBL since 1983 in the physical instrumentation program and later in the cell biology and the biophysics unit. In this interview, Ernst Stelzer reflects how he started his work on confocal fluorescence microscopy, but he also explains his later microscopy and laser work, also connected to specimen preparation. Furthermore, Ernst Stelzer especially describes the challenges of instrumentation, but he also describes how the collaboration with Carl Zeiss in Jena started to bring the confocal fluorescence microscopes as a product on the market.

This is an interview with the electrical engineer André Gabriel who started working at EMBL Grenoble in 1973. In this interview, André Gabriel explains how, through his contacts to Marc Chabre and Vittorio Luzzatti, molecular biology came to his professional interest. He describes how he witnessed the installation of the EMBL site in Grenoble and of its instruments as well as his impression of the first two DGs, Sir John Kendrew and Lennart Philipson. Besides that, André Gabriel also mentions his move to EMBL Heidelberg where he stayed until 1984.

This is an interview with Frieda Glöckner (born Leenart) who was EMBL's meetings secretary since 1975. In this interview, Glöckner describes how she worked at Brussels since 1970 close to EURATOM and how she perceived the development of EMBL from a project to its foundation in this position. Glöckner also describes the signing agreement of EMBL in Geneva at Cern and the installation of the first buidlings. Beyond that, this interview contains some description of the Second World War period Glöckner witnessed as a child and how she settled up it Heidelberg when EMBL was established there.

In this interview, Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute of Science who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 talks about the development of her research on ribosomal crystallography. Especially her electron microscopy work together with Kevin Leonard and Sir John Kendrew is linked to the EMBL Heidelberg.