What is your favourite enzyme, and why?

My favourite enzyme is beta-glucosidase 2 (GBA2).  This enzyme has been the focus of my research for quite some time, it removes glucose from glucosylated compounds. Its natural substrate is glucosylceramide, but can also transfer glucose to cholesterol.  When I was a post-doc at the University of Oxford, I came across GBA2 because we identified it as the target of a drug that works a male-contraceptive "pill" in mice (but not in humans).  Pharmacological inhibition of GBA2 also has anti-inflammatory effects, while mutations in the GBA2 gene have been found in a rare genetic disease, a complex movement disorder that affects long neurons in the spine.

 

What is your favourite book?

I can’t answer - there are too many! I really like The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s a fantastic story set in the 1950s about a family from Bethlehem, GA (USA).  They move to a remote area in what was then called the Belgian Congo, where the father starts to work as a missionary.  The mother and four daughters take turns in telling different chapters, each with a distinct voice, while the father looses himself in his missionary zeal.  The mismatch between this southern-American preacher and the local population is stark, each side unable to figure out the other.  In the background of the family saga is the transition of the country to independence.

 

What is the most recent book you’ve read?

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith. It’s got a fantastic cast of characters; set in London, it tells stories of Caribbean and Indian immigrants and their descendants, as well as a (ridiculous) liberal middle-class English family, and a paternity puzzle. Altogether a great read, funny.

 

What is your favourite amino acid, and why?

I am going for a glycosphingolipid, glucosylceramide, which is unique in that it is the only one of its class that is present on the cytoplasmic side of the plasma membrane and Golgi apparatus.

 

What are some of your hobbies?

I like reading fiction and non-fiction, cooking, doing the Saturday crossword in the Globe and Mail, and I used to go hiking. If I am not listening to BBC Radio 4, I have been known to tune into rave or house music, mainly old-school stuff, and sometimes turn it up in the lab.  

 

What is your dream vacation?

Hiking the GR10 (Grande Randonnée #10). The GR10 is one of the long-distance hiking trails in France, it runs along the Pyrenees close to the border of France and Spain from the Atlantic Coast of Europe to the Mediterranean.  I once walked a part of this trail.  On this side of the pond, it would be neat to walk the Appalachian Trail.

 

What is the coolest project you’ve ever worked on?

My current project is very exciting.  We are looking at the biochemical and cell biological consequences of mutations in the GBA2 gene.  

I also loved the male contraceptive project, it generated worldwide publicity.  Our publication led to two radio interviews and magazine articles in broad-audience magazines like the NewScientist and Popular Science, as well as in Family Circle!

 

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in lab?

Acts of complete clumsiness! I was mixing half a litre of 10M NaOH in a measuring cylinder covered in Parafilm. It got very hot, and melted the Parafilm, some burst out and landed on my head. Another time, some tubing slipped and I got paraformaldehyde in my face. 

 

Do you have any advice or anything else you want to say?

Consider your career options broadly, look especially outside of academia when you have completed your undergraduate or graduate degree. It’s a difficult time in science — like the rest of the world, the chasm between rich and poor investigators is only getting wider.  That being said, academic research is a wonderful path, and I would be happy to host summer and Honours students in my lab!