Ashley Dunn on Jim Watson, Writer
  Ashley Dunn     Biography    
Recorded: 15 Jan 2003

Oh, Jim is a brilliant writer. And of course like everyone else you start out as a poor writer and end up as a brilliant writer. I think Jim is a wonderful proponent of science as a profession and I think shows that in order to succeed in science you need to have the talent of being able to have ideas, do experiments, see what they mean and then market them. And you market scientific discoveries in two ways; one is by giving talks and the other is by writing, and Jim is able to do both of those very well.

I think the unique aspect of Jim’s writing comes more from the light hearted stuff. I think the textbook type of contributions that Jim makes he would not be separable from other people that themselves are good writers. But when he comes to writing things more for the lay public I think Jim has a style is easily recognizable and is very enjoyable to read, I’ve always felt.

Ashley Dunn is currently a Senior Consulting Scientist and member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Cryptome Pharmaceuticals Ltd., an Australian biotech company. He also serves on Australia’s Gene Technology Advisory Committee. He is the former Head of Molecular Biology in the Melbourne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

He came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1976 to work with Joe Sambrook as a postdoctoral fellow and eventually became a junior faculty member.

His research has been concentrated on mammalian growth factors and the regulators responsible for the production of white blood cells in mice and men. He co-invented a mammalian blood cell regulator (GM-CSF), and his lab was the one of the first to establish gene targeting in the development of human diseases such as cancer.