Presentation afternoon for Mike Skinner’s Scientifical Career
Please join us for an afternoon of presentations by past colleagues in science to mark the occasion of Mike’s retirement on the afternoon of Friday 16th September 2022 at St Mary’s Campus and also available to join online.
About Mike
Mike has enjoyed a peripatetic research career in molecular virology, during which he has studied a wide range of diverse viruses (from polio to corona, from retro to pox, with a smattering of birna, flavi and flu). He has been involved in virus genome sequencing since struggling to read tens of bases manually on 32P gels, then assembling hundreds of bases from capillary sequencers and finally processing billions of RNAseq reads from virus-infected cells. His interest in genetics, and its value as an experimental tool, dates to his PhD in microbial genetics, and proved invaluable in elucidating the structure (and role in neurovirulence) of the 5’ non-coding region of poliovirus and tracking down poxvirus modulators of the avian interferon response, as well as helping Wendy Barclay’s group identify the major host range restriction factor for avian flu.
Emerging viruses have been a major interest for Mike since working on HIV in the late ‘80s and since his group were first to clone and sequence two very different avian viruses that emerged in the late ‘80s to become panzootic (animal pandemics) and cause massive losses to the poultry industry, remaining as big problems to this day. An interest in vaccines dates to his work on polio but became more focussed on recombinant vaccine vectors after taking over work on fowlpox virus in 1990. In the early 2000s, Mike collaborated with Adrian Hill and Sarah Gilbert in their efforts to develop recombinant vector vaccines for malaria, before they moved on to the chimpanzee adenovirus that would be used for their COVID-19 vaccine. His experience in recombinant vectors led to an appointment in 2004 as a member of HSE’s newly formed Scientific Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification (Contained Use; SACGM), a committee he has chaired since 2014.
Mike took semi-retirement in July 2019, aiming to:-
reduce the burden of commuting, spend more time with now retired scientist & teacher wife, Judith, working from home (in Oxfordshire or Cornwall) and help look after young grandchildren. Of course, COVID-19 obviated the need to retire to enjoy the first two and negated the opportunity for the last. His research group then much reduced (to a PhD project on Zika virus) and being off grid during the first 3 weeks of March 2020, Mike felt his only possible practical contribution was to serve as a volunteer lab worker at Lighthouse, Milton Keynes, where he spent 2 months on 12h night and day shifts, performing sample triage and PCR preparation. He was relieved to find he could still pipette and had never done anything remotely like so much before.
Seminar will commence from 1.45 pm until 5.15 pm with a break midway.
Join in person: Anthony Rothschild Lecture Theatre, St Mary’s Campus
or Online: Click here to join the meeting Meeting ID: 379 062 793 819, Passcode: rdjkJK
Download Teams | Join on the web