Paul B. Rothman grew up in Queens, New York, one of two children in a Russian-Polish Jewish family. His father was a lawyer, his mother a professor of criminology interested in juvenile justice. He attended public schools, being an athlete rather than an academic. His parents had high expectations of their children, as well as the knowledge and income to send them to better (Ivy League) schools. From a young age, Rothman liked to take things apart to see how they worked and then to put them back together; this translated into doing well in mathematics and science classes. Rothman matriculated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The first-year science curriculum at MIT did not prevent him from rowing on the crew team. He also began doing research in the Graham C. Walker lab under the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. He chose to pursue a medical degree in a research environment, reflecting upon the advantages of the MD degree over the MD/PhD for the clinician-researcher. Rothman decided to attend the Yale University School of Medicine, which used a problem-solving instructional approach, correlating nicely with his view of scientific inquiry. He acquired molecular techniques in Graham C. Walker's lab; took courses in immunology; and also worked in the Leonard Chess lab. For a short time he considered a career as an orthopedic surgeon, but he finally decided on a medical residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, with rheumatology as a chemical subspecialty. He began a postdoc in Frederick Alt's biochemistry and biophysics lab at Columbia; there he worked on interleukin-4 regulation of immunoglobulin class-switching and collaborations with other scientists facilitated the IL-4 research. After his postdoctoral work, he took a position at Columbia University, and he found himself unsure of the ways in which to split the class-switch and IL-4 signal transduction work with Alt, though soon he began collaborating with Christian Schindler on cytokine signaling. He has since focused his research on the role of cytokines in lymphocyte development, though pursuing this work in varied directions. The interview concludes with Rothman discussing his own lab: the advantages of being medium-sized; his lab management; and the lab's current research projects, into which he hopes to enfold research into lung cancer. He follows this with his explanation of the difference between creativity and problem-solving ability in the practice of science. He explains his clinical rheumatology duties and his teaching responsibilities at Columbia and he addresses the interviewer's questions about his funding and science funding in general; publishing; job possibilities for himself and for his lab personnel; skills necessary for a good clinician; and the interface between the pharmaceutical industry and academic research. The interview ends with a description of the challenge of balancing career and family.