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 the evolutionary developmental biologist and Nobel Prize-winner Eric Wieschaus who was a group leader at EMBL Heidelberg between 1978 and 1981. In this interview, Eric Wieschaus describes how he became interested in flies an how he and Christiane Nüsslein-Vollhard came from working with Walter Gehring to starting at EMBL. Furthermore, Eric Wieschaus gives an insight of his daily work at EMBL, especially concerning mutagenesis and later zygotically active lethals screening. He also describes the cooperation with the EMBL facilities and he gives a special insight into his impressions of EMBLs first DG, Sir John Kendrew.

this is an interview with the molecular biologist Andrew Miller who worked for EMBL from 1975 to 1980 and who set up the EMBL outstation at Grenoble in that time. In this interview, Andrew Miller explains how his research interest changed from x-ray crystallography to the application of neutrons at the Grenoble outstation. He describes how he perceived the outstation, especially its relations to the ILL and the other scientific institutions in Grenoble, but also the scientific work that was done there at the time. Furthermore, Andrew Miller talks about the relations between Grenoble and the EMBL sites in Hamburg and Heidelberg, but he also reflects the general significance of neutron scattering for structural and molecular biology.

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.