Daniel Louvard, Director of the Curie Institute in Paris, visited NCBS last month to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Curie and NCBS. We managed to 'steal' him away from the commotion and badgered him with questions about the MoU, the new opportunities it might give to the students of NCBS and his views on current cancer research.

Supriya: How did this collaboration come about?

Daniel: Ludger Johannes had a number of interactions with several groups here, from your institute, NCBS, and they came to the idea we should formalize our interaction. So, a year ago, a year and half ago, Ludger came to my office and said it would be good if we can formalize that by a document that really reinforces our interaction, and I say, that's a good idea. So this is how the collaboration came about. This is a document that really confirms formally an existing collaboration between groups and so there's a clear understanding of what we are doing together.