Dr Alex Gould
This profile is from the MRC Annual Review 08/09: A day of discovery. The review takes readers on a journey through a day in the life of the MRC, dropping in on people involved in MRC research as they go about their daily business to find out what they’re doing.
Group leader in the developmental neurobiology programme at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), London.
Dr Alex Gould studies the genetics of growth and metabolism in fruit flies to gain insights into human disease.
Ten geneticists are gathered around a table busily pushing cotton wool bungs into thousands of plastic vials. Trays of vials are being stacked from floor to ceiling and the room is filled with a noisy hubbub. The vials will soon become home to newly-hatched Drosophila (fruit flies), the subject of hundreds of new experiments.
“This ritual is what we call a bunging session – the bungs are to stop the flies escaping from the vials,” explains Dr Alex Gould. “With everyone pitching in we can get the whole thing done faster. It’s become a bit of a social occasion; all the fly lab staff come along.”
Alex runs a ten-strong group of scientists who are researching the genetics of growth and metabolism. Their experiments involve mating together Drosophila to study how characteristics are passed through generations. About two-thirds of human disease related genes are shared with Drosophila – so by studying genes in a very simple system like the fruit fly they hope to learn something that’s relevant to human health. “Our work involves trying to understand the basic nuts and bolts of how growth is regulated and how in particular the brain ‘knows’ when it’s made enough cells and should stop growing,” he says.
Last year, Cédric Maurange and Louise Cheng, researchers in Alex’s group, discovered the existence of ‘timer’ genes in the Drosophila brain which control its ultimate size. These genes also exist in human brains, so this research could have exciting implications for understanding human diseases.
Alex’s research is part of a much larger problem: understanding how an animal’s size is specified. Why, for example, is a mouse the size it is and a rat the size it is? “The bodies of mice and rats are remarkably similar, and if you changed the magnification of a picture of a mouse you could almost believe it was a rat. Something in the genomes of these two species tells them to be different sizes but we don’t yet have much of an idea about how that works,” he explains.
“Our work’s at the fundamental end of science, but it still plays a crucial role. You can think of medical research as a sausage machine, where you put ingredients in at one end and get health benefits out at the other end. If you stop putting in high-quality raw material then eventually you’ll stop getting any health benefits.”
Alex is usually in the lab by 8.45am and leaves at 7.30pm. “It’s a long day but we get paid to do what we love to do – it’s a vocation as much as anything else.” As he works for an MRC research institute, Alex spends much of his time devising experiments and analysing results – something he feels very fortunate to be able to do.
So what makes him want to come into work every day? “Discovering new ideas, the thrill of finding out something that nobody has ever seen before. I can’t think of many places in the UK, or in fact the world, where one can do the type of research that I do at NIMR with the minimum number of outside distractions. Secondly, it gives me great joy to train young scientists and watch them develop into talented independent researchers.”
Published August 2009