Briefly, tell us about your background and career up to this point?
I was lucky to attend a state grammar school in Gloucestershire and grew up with a passion for sport, both watching and playing at school and county level and for local teams. I did well in my exams and went on to study Biology at the University of Manchester.
First term at university in 1988 I had one of those flashbulb moments where you remember exactly where you were when a big news story broke. For me this was a hall of residence communal TV room on a Saturday lunchtime, watching Des Lynam on BBC Grandstand break the unbelievable news from the Seoul Olympics that Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson had been stripped of his gold medal in the 100 metres, due to a failed drug test. When I graduated, I had no clear career path in mind, little did I know that anti-doping would become the focus of my career.
After university I moved back home and got a job at a local food research laboratory, where I spent 5 years learning chromatography and also where I met my future wife! I relocated to the London suburbs to join a clinical research lab in Surrey in the mid 1990s and got the job of Analyst at the Drug Control Centre at King’s College London after responding to an advert in New Scientist in 2000. I started in chromatography/mass spectrometry before specialising in immunoassay techniques for the detection of prohibited performance enhancing hormones, particularly erythropoietin and human growth hormone. I’ve been able to pass on the experience gained from the anti-doping operation for the London 2012 Olympics to various anti-doping labs across the globe as they prepared for major events like the Olympics and Commonwealth Games; from Seoul to Rio de Janeiro and from Doha to New Delhi.
What is a typical day like for you?
Since 2017 I’ve swapped pipettes for paperwork as I’ve traded the lab for the office in my role as Laboratory Operations Manager.
I get up early and am usually at work before 8.30. I’m definitely a morning person! At work I’ll make a coffee, open my emails, check in with the analysts in the lab, see how many samples have arrived. Day to day is varied, but between meetings every day I am checking data and reporting results, dealing with customer queries, managing sample throughput and organising laboratory workload and priorities. I always try and find time for a 20 minute walk at lunchtime, to boost my step count but mainly because of the physical and mental health benefits of getting out into the fresh air.
What do you do with your time outside academia/work?
We got a rescue dog from Serbia just after lockdown - weekends are for long dog walks in the beautiful scenery of the Surrey hills.
What are you most looking forward to this year?
We have 2 daughters aged 18 and 20 – thankfully they're still happy to join us on the occasional all-expenses-paid family holiday! We all love the beach so are very much looking forward to a holiday in Greece this summer. I also have a long-standing annual tradition to look forward to: a reunion that revolves around an England cricket Test match. This year, it's England vs India at Old Trafford Manchester – the cricket is an excuse for a good catch up with a few of my oldest friends.
Who inspires you most and why?
I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing colleagues over the years and I’m inspired on a daily basis by their professionalism and dedication.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
Providing the anti-doping service for the London 2012 Olympics was an unforgettable experience, a massive undertaking that I’ll always be proud of. But if and when the history of anti-doping is written I guess I’ll be remembered for my contribution to the work that led to the Drug Control Centre reporting the world’s first adverse analytical finding for human growth hormone (hGH) in 2010.
Although hGH had been banned for over a decade, a test wasn’t developed until 2004 at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich by researchers investigating growth hormone in patients with developmental disorders. I went there for training then came back to London and validated the test in an anti-doping lab. The test was updated in 2007 and I went on to train scientists from around the world as the technique was rolled out to all anti-doping laboratories.
In 2010, we detected the first hGH positive case ever recorded, a landmark moment that generated major attention in the anti-doping world. With our lab director, Prof. David Cowan, at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I found myself unexpectedly giving interviews to Sky Sports and the BBC.
We reported 2 more growth hormone positives at the 2012 London Paralympics using a different test that the Drug Control Centre had developed in collaboration with endocrinologists Prof. Peter Sonksen and Prof. Richard Holt from the University of Southampton. That test that had been 20 years in the making and finally got approved for use the day the Olympic village opened, so to finish the Paralympics with a couple of positives was a powerful vindication of the years of hard work that had gone into it.
QUICK-FIRE:
Favourite season: Spring
Favourite book: Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Favourite cuisine: Indian
Netflix recommendation: Hinterland (BBC iplayer)
Coffee order: Flat white