I feel honored to be identified as an astrobiology pioneer and to be invited to present my personal perspective on this exciting research field. In a way, my destiny to work in this interdisciplinary subject area was predetermined. When entering the university, I was unable to decide between astrophysics and genetics; some of my friends called it the ‘‘dilemma of dimensions.’’ I decided to study both: I pursued molecular biology and astronomy at the University of Vienna and completed my master’s thesis in the field of protein chemistry at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Salzburg. I often had a 60-hour work week—and, in contrast to my son (who entered McGill University in 2010), I definitely missed a lot of parties during my undergraduate training. Subsequently, I was able to continue my work with an interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis combining biology, chemistry, and astronomy.