И его текст. Hi Olga OK, a few sentences on my work, and on | Olga Brayne International

И его текст.

Hi Olga

OK, a few sentences on my work, and on my teaching in the University. It is important to realise that I am fundamentally a researcher, who has run a research group of ten or so students and postdocs studying my research topic for many years. My teaching load is much lighter, because my research is considered very significant to the University; it brings in lots of research money and attracts students/postdocs and enhances the research reputation of the University. 

So, by way of background I have been a committed biochemist since I was a young student. Basically this involved studying the behaviour of enzymes and finding how their activity is controlled. There are many hundreds of different enzymes present in different cells and it is the array of enzymes that defines the different properties of different cell types. One of the biggest breakthroughs in understanding how these enzymes are controlled was by the identification of a so-called second messenger, called cyclic AMP. This is a 'message' that comes from the surface of the cell in response to hormones or neurotransmitters. This coordinates the activities of all of the enzymes in particular cells. I started working on cyclic AMP in fat cells during my Ph.D. thesis and I have worked on it ever since. I worked on cyclic AMP in adrenal cells during my first post-doc fellowship in Sussex. I worked on cyclic AMP in many systems during my second postdoctoral fellowship in Washington, DC, with a colleague, who later got the Nobel prize for his work. In fact 7 separate Nobel prizes were awarded to this topic, which shows you how important it was considered (still is). I also spent periods picking up new techniques in Padua (Italy) Geneva (Switzerland) and Berlin (Germany). I was very much a hands-on 'bench' scientist and felt that I had to learn methodologies in detail in order to transfer them to colleagues in my home lab (either in Denver, Colorado for 20 years or Cambridge for 18 years). And I also just loved doing experiments. My work these days would probably be called cell biology, using different kinds of microscopes - light or fluorescent and you get a real sense of the lives of cells. All along I have been a naturalist in any case and so it is just 'natural' for me to get as intimately associated with living organisms and their dynamism as possible.

So research-wise I'm a cell biologist; teaching-wise a basic Pharmacologist; philosophy-wise I am a naturalist.