Spotlight

The Gene Machine

Martin Taylor

Science, like many things, benefits from the ancient Greek mentor-protegé relationship, and one splendid example of this is to be found in the biochemistry department of Otago University. For the past four to six years, Professor Warren Tate has been a mentor to PhD students Chris Brown, John Moffat, Kirsten Timms and Joanna Williams.

Tate is one of New Zealand's most successful scientists, with many awards and achievements, but his longest lasting contribution to science may well be in the form of his scientific offspring; he sees his role as a mentor as similar to being a parent.

"You subtly push and guide without controlling. I encourage my students to work toward their strengths and to work with their weaknesses -- you are much more likely to succeed with your strengths," says Tate. Success has come with Brown, Moffat, Timms and Williams all graduating from Tate's gene technology lab.

"I can't put my hand on my heart and say `it has never happened in New Zealand before' [four PhD students graduating from a single lab], but I would be very surprised if it had."

Working closely together has helped each member of the group through the hard times: "If you have a group that has good chemistry some of the hard times can be mollified. When some people in the group are having success it lets other people know that success is possible and usually spurs everyone on."

Tate believes that completing a PhD is an uncompromising challenge.

"It's a bit like climbing a mountain; there are no short cuts and you can't cheat. PhD students need to be enormously resilient. They have to be able to take defeat, accept long periods of failure and survive these times before the successes come," he says.

Focus, resolve and long hours seem to be the essential ingredients in Brown's success. Each weekday he would spend between 10 and 12 hours in the lab, half days on the weekends.

"You've got to be prepared to work away at an experiment and have it fail for weeks on end and know that you can work your way through the problem and some day make it work. I guess I am just stubborn."

Timms's project was perhaps more emotionally taxing than the others. It took her nearly five years. Late in her project she discovered she had a contamination problem which led to several "false positive" results. The continuous set-backs nearly beat her, but she hung on.

"There are more bad times than there are good. It's a bit like a pendulum with a magnet constantly pulling you towards failure and despair. Occasionally it swings toward the good times and success. Usually it doesn't quite reach; it just gets close enough to give you a peek at how good things could be. I guess the promise, and the people, are what keeps me interested. It must be the masochistic streak in me!"

Anticlimactic Endings

As is the case at the end of any endurance event, crossing the finish line can be anti-climatic. Excitement and enthusiasm wanes, then reality lands with a thud. After Williams finished her oral exam she remembers thinking "Is that it?".

"You spend four years of your life working on, and thinking about, your project. When you are tested you expect the examiners to challenge your ideas and findings, then tell you if you are right or wrong, but they don't. The reality is, you get to a stage where nobody else knows if you are right or wrong."

Why did they put themselves through such misery?

"Having a PhD gives you a licence to attempt to be a `real scientist'. If you finish with a Masters or a Bachelors degree you are always going to be a technician" says Brown. He also believes that the result justifies the hardship.

"Seeing the evolution of a thought through to an experiment and then into a provocative publication gives me an intense feeling of personal fulfilment."

The desire to gain autonomy to follow their own scientific direction is also a major motivation. Williams already had her Bachelors and Masters degree in biochemistry when she decided to proceed with her PhD. She explains why she continued: "A Bachelor of Science gives you an introduction to science; a Masters gives you the practical skills; and a Doctorate is your independence."

Overseas Experience

The sheer size of the international scientific machine makes it essential for graduates to gain overseas experience. In science there is a commonality of language, thought patterns, and mutual respect which brings scientists into an international community.

Timms will be the first to go. She is going to work at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas where she will be working on HIV 1.

"We need to go. It gives us the opportunity to prove ourselves in the real world. When you have done that you no longer remain someone-or-other's student; you become a scientist judged on your own merits" she says.

Williams has recently returned from a conference in New York and explains the advantages of working close to other people working in a similar field. "Overseas, if you have an idea you can pop down the corridor and discuss it with your colleagues. Here, you often put the idea to the back of your mind and forget it because there is no-one to discuss it with.

"Travel and conferences are major influences. You sit in a little room with all these people working in the same field. They talk about things that are not published which can have a major impact on your work. This is especially important in New Zealand because so few people are working on the same topic. You can read all you like but there is no substitute for talking to people. In the literature you only see the finished product, you never see the failures that occurred on the way. So you don't know if it is a bad idea to target a gene, or to try a certain experiment."

Coming Back

Tate worked in Houston and Berlin for a number of years, but patriotism and new challenges brought him back.

"I felt nationalistic and I hoped that by returning I could lift the standard, tone and brief of New Zealand science. If I had stayed in the US, I would have remained an adjunct of the person I was working under. I wanted to see if I could rise to the challenge of going-it- alone."

All four of the graduates hope to return home to work in New Zealand. However, each of them share a common concern that employment and career opportunities are limited. Moffat expresses his fear that New Zealand doesn't have the resources to support the type of research he is interested in.

"There is applied work in New Zealand's Crown Research Institutes but the real gap lies in the absence of `basic research' sponsored by biotech companies. There is basic research in New Zealand but only in the universities, and those positions are very scarce."

New Zealand's CRIs are concerned that too many of our best scientists are leaving and not returning. They are beginning to offer packages that are designed to entice them back. And Tate believes that in the future there will be great demand for PhD graduates in biochemistry in New Zealand.

"The techniques are applicable to many different fields. There seems to be a national acceptance that biotechnology will be an important part of our national growth. Many fields are looking for biochemists."

Timms also believes the future is looking healthy: "After all the effort, I think you could become very bitter if you returned to New Zealand at the cost of your career. It does, however, seem like things are improving and it looks like I will be able to make a happy compromise between career and lifestyle when I return."

All have undergone extensive training -- an average of ten years of study and research with minimal income. Their endurance, dedication, determination and self-discipline combined with their intelligence, resilience, curiosity and creativity has enabled them to climb to the top of the education system. They have earned their scientific wings and the independence to direct their own scientific future. Now it is time to fly, to learn new techniques, make new contacts and develop their reputations. Eventually they will be on the front end of the mentor-protegé relationship. That's the way it works.

Martin Taylor is a freelance writer specialising in science and medical issues.