I'm Neil Gow, I work here in Aberdeen in the north of the country, I'm part of the
Aberdeen fungal group which gives away the fact I'm a eukaryotic microbiologist.
Well I was trained as a microbiologist
originally as an undergraduate at Edinburgh, I then moved to Aberdeen to
do my PhD. From then I went for a very brief period to Denver in the United
States as a postdoc and then I came back here and I've been working here
in Aberdeen ever since. Always studying microorganisms and nearly always
studying fungi.
I've always been fascinated by
fungal cells, they're beautiful they're aesthetically very attractive looking cells,
they're big enough to see with the microscopy clearly. My group's interests
have always been on the dark side of mycology, the medical pathogens of humans
and we especially study candida which is the most common
serious pathogen of humans.
So I've been a member since 1980.
It's the first society I joined as a PhD student and I've had many very useful
and helpful interactions with the society over many years. The first
meeting I ever attended was one of the Society's meetings and the first
research grant I ever got was a small grant, well six thousand pounds in 1984,
which set my new lab going and
enabled me to buy a new fluorescence microscope, which was incredibly
important for me I can tell you.
Since then I've worked with the society in a number of different
ways. I've had the honor of being one of the editors of one of its journals. Its got many
journals now. I have acted as chairperson of the eukaryotic group and I've been
on council. So I have seen the society working from a number of different
angles and always really enjoyed that
Well microbiology is always in the news. You just need to open any newspaper any
day of the week and you'll find an article which is related to a
microbiological challenge. We think about microbiological challenges not just in
terms of infectious diseases - ebola viruses, about pandemic flu, about malaria,
about cryptococcal meningitis, about drug-resistant bacteria. These are really
important ones but there's also issues like food security which can be
reduced in part to containing pathogens of crops. We can think about the
opportunities that microbiology presents in terms of modern medicine and
we could think about the way in which microbiology contributes to biology as a
whole. Just think about for example the new CRISPR/Cas9 technology which
is revolutionising biology in general. This is a type of bacterial immune system
which is now being made to work for us. And this is the contribution that
microbiology can make into the future.
This is an incredibly important practical subject but also with
academically vitally important things to contribute to science. And what we want
to do as a society is to make sure that's showcased, resourced, and make sure that
people know about the opportunities that microbiology has to offer.
Amongst the things I'm going to really focus on are two. One is I passionately
believe that we have to fully engage with our younger scientists because they
are the future. In the past, membership of societies used to come with the
territory of being a PhD student. And thats, to some extent less of the case
now, in a virtual world where everything is available immediately online. So we
have to have ways of attracting people into the society and getting them to
participate in this society, so they know this is not just a society for them,
about them, but actually involves them. And one of the things I'd like to do is
bring in a cohort of younger scientists to shape the way in which we do business
in the future, to to have a political role, an organizational role and to be
able to have resources at their disposal to deal with issues which are concerned
with young scientists. So that's one thing. And secondly, while I
would like to represent microbiology as a whole, I also feel that I have an
advantage here coming in as a eukaryotic microbiologist to make sure that the
communication between the many societies which represent eukaryotic microbiology
are harnessed by our umbrella society, which has tremendous resources which can
be shared and used to everybody's profit if we work together. So those are two
things that I'd like to pay some attention to.
Well I think one thing about taking on a role like this is it works best for people
who like to work with other people. Now that seems like an obvious thing to say
but actually societies in terms of their organization are teams. And like any team
you get functional teams where people pull together and have a common vision and
ones where they failed to reach their potential because they failed to achieve
those synergies. I really like working with people I've always enjoyed hearing
about microbiology from different angles even ones which are way outside my own
experience. I love listening into conversations and talks about virology,
about bacteriology, about parasitology, phycology, all these different angles
are all fascinating areas. So I think one of the privileges is actually just being
able to experience that. I'll be in that position where great science will come
to me, so I'm going to enjoy that. I know my team on council, I know many of them
individually, I'm looking forward to working with them, actually I've had the
pleasure of working with many of them before in different contexts.
So I think there's a lot to be look forward to both academically
and also socially taking on that role.