Dr James Reddington, Associate Director at GSK Omics Technologies

Why did you choose to study here? 

I joined the IGC when it was called the MRC Human Genetics Unit and Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine as a Masters and then PhD student. Coming out of my BSc studies, I was drawn to molecular biology and the understanding of molecular mechanisms. I had really enjoyed my third-year thesis research project and loved the idea of becoming a researcher as a career.  When I was younger, my brother had survived childhood leukemia thanks to the treatments available at the time. Putting the two things together, I knew that I wanted to work at the interface of studying fundamental biology and furthering medical research. The IGC was a perfect fit in that regard. I was also attracted by the four-year MSc and PhD programme that offered rotations in the first year – I didn’t have much laboratory and research experience at the time so the opportunity to gain exposure to different research themes, techniques, and ways of working as part of a one-year ‘crash course’ was very valuable. The icing on the cake was the cluster of research excellence on offer at the site and in Edinburgh as a whole.  

What did you study and why? 

For my MSc year, I rotated through three research groups gaining exposure to diverse biological topics: The molecular regulation of mRNA metabolism and translation; genetic regulation of eye development; and epigenetic regulation of gene expression. For my PhD research, I joined Richard Meehan’s group to study epigenetic regulation of gene expression with a focus on DNA methylation. I chose this topic because I became fascinated with how epigenetic mechanisms contribute to cellular decision making, specifically how the hundreds of cell-types in our body differentially interpret essentially identical genetic sequence information to give rise to diverse cellular functions, and how these processes go awry in cancer. This was at an exciting time from a technology perspective as massively parallel sequencing and microarray technologies were fueling the development of omics technologies – technologies that could measure the expression of all genes (‘transcriptomics’) or the location of all epigenetic marks (‘epigenomics’) in a sample in one go. These technologies enabled a new level of biological understanding but also required handling and making sense of much larger volumes of data. I found that I enjoyed this aspect of my research more than I had expected and as a result spent time gradually learning more bioinformatics which turned out to shape my future career decisions. 

What the most rewarding aspect of your time here?

Seeing through a PhD project from ideation and inception to thesis and publication was a huge challenge but also very rewarding. 

And the most challenging? 

To put it bluntly, scientific research is hard – there are nearly always highs and lows during a three to four-year PhD project as it takes its inevitable twists and turns. I took away that being successful in research requires the culmination of many things: the right strategy combined with creativity, resilience, patience, dedication and a bit of luck. In the good times and the harder times alike, I was grateful to be surrounded by so many supporting and inspiring colleagues and mentors. 

What have you done since completing your course?

I moved from the IGC to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) for a post-doctoral fellowship and then stayed for a stint as a Staff Scientist in the group of Eileen Furlong in the Genome Biology Unit. As a research topic, I remained with my interest in epigenetics, gene regulation and cellular decision making but transitioned into using fruit-fly embryonic development as a model system. During this time, I doubled down on the omics technologies and bioinformatic data analysis of large datasets. After seven fantastic years at EMBL, I joined a former biotechnology company called Cellzome which had been acquired by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, switching focus to using omics technologies to further the discovery and development of medicines. I first joined as a Scientific Investigator, then became a Team Leader and I currently work as an Associate Director in the Target Discovery department.

How did your time at IGC help you in your career? 

There was a special atmosphere and high research standards at the IGC that I think helped lay the foundation for my career to date. I benefited from the interdisciplinary research themes and diverse backgrounds, interests, techniques and skillsets at the Institute, and it was a privilege to work with so many inspiring colleagues. Scientific discussions and feedback were sometimes very robust which I think set me up well to defend my work and ideas under pressure. I learned many things from my mentors, including to dig deeper and look beyond what we think we understand when approaching a new topic, something I learned from my PhD supervisor Richard.

What are your future career aspirations? 

I want to be able to look back at my career in retirement and conclude that I contributed my small part to the advancement of scientific knowledge and discovery of medicines that improve the lives of patients.