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Seeing
small yet thinking big!
Andrew
Collins, University of New South Wales
My
career has always been changing, and it continues to change.
I do not know where
my work will take me next,
but I look forward to
finding out!
By chance, April 12th was my longest working day of the year
so far. But it was a very enjoyable one.
As a Lecturer
Each year, I give a series of introductory lectures to biomedical
engineering students. These lectures and associated practical
classes are held in the evening, from 6pm to 9pm. I introduce
the students to the disciplines of microbiology and immunology.
My objectives are few - I
cannot turn an engineering
student into a biologist
overnight.
I aim to highlight the potential dangers
of infections of micro-organisms that are
associated with the introduction of any manufactured 'thing'
into the body. The development of all surgically implanted
devices, like artificial hip joints and cochlear implants,
needs to be approached by the engineers with a consciousness
of infection control.
I introduce students to immunology - the study of the body's
defences against infection- and then educate them to an amazing
machine called a flow cytometric cell
sorter. My department has a very fancy cell
sorter that was invented by a group of Australian biomedical
engineers. This machine can be used to
analyse the different
kinds of cells in
the blood,
or to sort one kind of cell from all the others. Similar machines
are even used to sort Y chromosome-bearing sperm from X chromosome-bearing
sperm, for use in breeding programs for rare and endangered
species. My long day ended with my explaining the principles
of the machine to a number of groups of enthusiastic students.
It was very satisfying.
As a Researcher
Research is equally important in my working day, and to my
career. My research interest is, naturally, to understand
the way the immune
system works.
I am particularly interested in the allergic reaction - perhaps
because like so many other people in our community,
I suffer from allergic disease! One of the
reasons why I like immunology is that there are still so many
very basic questions about the immune system that we struggle
to answer.
If you ask me why so
many people suffer from
allergies, I cannot
really answer you!
I can tell you all sorts of things about HOW allergic reactions
happen, but less about WHY they happen. I like thinking about
these big questions. For many years, I have been involved
in laboratory work, trying to understand different aspects
of the allergic reaction. More recently, I have started studying
the genes that encode molecules, called
antibodies, which are
central to the allergic
reaction. I now spend most of my research
time at the computer analysing gene sequences. This is an
unexpected direction for my research to take, but my team
is more productive than ever, and I enjoy my work more than
ever.
How I became an Immunologist
I was a medical student for a few years, but I left before
graduating, and eventually completed a science degree and
a PhD in immunology. I always loved mathematics at school,
but turned towards medicine and biology, because it was more
obvious to me where studies in those fields would lead.
Now thirty years later, the ideas that we have developed through
the study of human genes have led us to work on issues relating
to the evolution of
micro-organisms, and to evolution
in general. And to my great surprise, my earlier
interest of mathematics is becoming more important in my work.
This is a particularly satisfying element about the diverse
career I have had.
Written by Andrew Collins- Edited by Kavitha Arunagirinathan
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