Spotlight On: Steve Gordon
When people ask me about my career, it’s often with a subtext of 'what was your career plan?' I’d love to be able to say that I had some master plan; but I didn’t. Instead, I’ve just been lucky to pursue ideas that interested me, in great places, with fantastic people.
I grew up in Derby in the British Midlands, so I’m a Derby County supporter (lucky me!). My parents moved back to Ireland in the late 1970s, so I added Mayo to my footballing allegiances. Following both teams has given me plenty of good times, but also taught me the value of resilience in the face of (repeated) disappointment; perfect training for the ups and downs of scientific research.
As long as I can remember, I’ve loved science. As a boy, I spent my pocket money on science-fiction comics, and that was reinforced by coverage on BBC children’s TV of various science news such as the unmanned space probes that were blasting off into space in the mid-1970s. Going from Derby to the west of Ireland at least meant that there was no light pollution, so I’d spend many the evening staring up into space, looking for shooting stars and figuring out constellations.
I went to UCG, University College Galway (as it was called back then) to do a BSc. After graduation, I started a PhD in UCG on antibiotic resistance. However, after a couple of months my supervisor, Pete Smith, came to me one evening in the lab looking very grim…the grant that was going to fund my work had been rejected, so no more PhD. It took me awhile to process what this meant; no funding…no PhD? Looking back now I realise it was my introduction to the fickle nature of research funding. But I dusted myself off, looked for a new option, and started a PhD the following year with Peter Andrew at the University of Leicester in the British Midlands; so back to the start in more ways than one. My PhD was on mycobacterial genetics, an area that I have worked on for over 30 years. That must show that I love mycobacterial research…or that making any progress is a long process. I suppose it’s a mix of both.
That’s not to say that my mycobacterial research has all gone smoothly. For example, my PhD project was to clone the ‘catalase’ gene from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the TB pathogen. However, about a year into my PhD, I was scooped by researchers from London and Paris who cloned the gene. I couldn’t get a PhD on something that had already been published. So, no PhD...'déjà vu all over again.' But I had time on my side; I switched to a different aspect and worked on mycobacterial gene expression. And I had learned an important lesson; if you can’t beat them, join them. So, once my PhD was over, I pursued my postdoctoral research in the group of Stewart Cole at the Institute Pasteur in Paris who had been the senior author on the catalase paper that had scooped me.
My time in Paris was wonderful. Stewart’s group were collaborating with the UK Sanger Centre to sequence the entire genome of M. tuberculosis. During my PhD, it had taken me months and months to sequence a few hundred base pairs of mycobacterial DNA; now they would sequence the more than 4 million base pairs of the genome. We were in a race with a US group, so back to that theme of competition again. But luckily, we made it to the finish line first. And as well as the excitement in the lab my social life was going well, living in one of the world’s great cities. I met my future wife in France, so those days always have a special place in my heart.
From growing up in the Mayo countryside, I was well aware of the toll of TB lockdowns on neighbouring farms. I often wondered how I could apply esoteric bacterial genetics to making a difference back home. When I finished in Paris, I was lucky that an opportunity came up to work on bovine TB with Glyn Hewinson’s team at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) in Surrey (back to the UK again). I learned so much in VLA about goal-oriented research and interacting with policy makers as well as basic scientists.
I was very happy in VLA, it was a wonderful group to work in, and we lived close to London, so another super city. But in my heart, I always wanted us to live back in Ireland, a feeling that became stronger once our son was born. I would often buy the Irish Times on trips in and out of London to keep up with the news back home, and in one of those editions came across an advert for new academic appointments in University College Dublin. I realised that this was the opportunity that I’d been looking for; I applied, and here I am today.
I’ve been so lucky to live in different places, and work with so many fantastic people. And that’s been the most rewarding part - the people that I’ve been lucky enough to work with during my travels and here in UCD. Helping early career researchers in my group start on their own scientific journeys brings things full circle for me again.