Following Up
Where are they now?
A former AHFMR researcher's career path has led him to the other side of the world and back again.
Story by Kathy Classen/Photo by David Szabo
Dr. Malcolm Paterson, a native of New Brunswick, originally had his sights set on a military career. However, a sports injury and the resulting hospital stay sparked an interest in medical research strong enough to set him on a different career path altogether-one that has spanned 40 years and taken him around the globe.
Dr. Paterson's international journey began in Tennessee with Ph.D. studies at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. There, he was the first foreign student to work with Dr. Richard Setlow, co-founder of the field of DNA repair. A post-doctoral fellowship took Dr. Paterson next to Holland, where he investigated DNA repair in animal cell cultures. This European stint laid the groundwork for his subsequent research on DNA repair in human cells at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories in Ontario.
In 1985 Dr. Paterson was recruited to Alberta to set up a molecular oncology program at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. The establishment of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) five years earlier had contributed to an atmosphere of excitement in the biomedical research field. "AHFMR proved to be a lightning rod for both U of A and U of C in attracting world-class talent," he recalls, "and in those days we were all filled with a sense of embarking together on a truly unique voyage for Canadian researchers."
In his research at "the Cross", he was particularly interested in environmental and hereditary factors underlying cancer. His work on genetic susceptibility to breast cancer was especially fruitful, as collaboration with Dr. Dennis Slamon at UCLA contributed to Slamon's pioneering development of Herceptin as an effective immune therapy for breast cancer.
At the end of the 1990s, an opportunity to study a group of women with a high incidence of breast cancer led Dr. Paterson to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he headed a biomedical research program that featured a team of investigators from 20 nations.
The most recent bend in Dr. Paterson's career path took him to Singapore. For the past six years, he has served as the inaugural scientific director of SingHealth, a group of public-healthcare hospitals and clinics. He often found himself comparing programs he was establishing in Singapore with those AHFMR has put in place in Alberta.
"I may have left AHFMR," says Paterson, "but AHFMR has never left me. It was my good fortune to have been associated with a superb group of colleagues and trainees in those days."