Brian J. Wilkinson / Biography


BRIAN J. WILKINSON
Scapegoat Hill 1930. A village char-a-banc trip to Manchester.


"Prof"
It took the village of Scapegoat Hill high in the Yorkshire Pennines in England to raise Brian J. Wilkinson. A teenage interest in chemistry sets led to the nickname of “Prof” amongst the village lads. Dr. Wilkinson obtained his B.Sc. degree (Magna Cum Laude) in biochemistry from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1967. He returned to Yorkshire to the University of Sheffield, known for its strength in microbial biochemistry, for a Ph.D. in Microbiology, which he received in 1971. At that time a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States was de rigueur for British Ph.D.s and this was undertaken in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Kentucky. In 1973 Dr. Wilkinson returned to England as a Broodbank Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.
However, the attractions of America proved to be too strong, and Dr. Wilkinson immigrated to the United States in 1976, taking a position as a non-tenure track assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Section and Department of Microbiology, at the University of Minnesota. In 1979 Dr. Wilkinson was appointed an assistant professor of microbiology and chemistry at Illinois State University.
In 1996 Dr. Wilkinson was appointed as a University Distinguished Professor at Illinois State University. In the spring of 1998 he delivered the lecture “From a Yorkshire Biochemist to an American Microbiologist and Lessons Learned Along the Way” to the university, and the summary of the lecture follows.

Rather than give another lecture with an almost exclusive focus on microbiology like my recent Arts and Sciences Lecture, tonight’s lecture will emphasize personal reflections and reminiscences. Lessons learned, often slowly, in a career in microbiology, but also more generally a career in academia, will be shared in the hope that they might be of general interest.

"Fresh off the boat, 1971"

1964-67. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. The undergraduate experience. Honors (senior) thesis – thrown in at the deep end of the research pool by Professor H.K. King.
1967-71. University of Sheffield. Ph.D.
Introduction to the world of the bacterial cell surface – a good milch cow, as Thomas Hardy remarked of Tess of the D’Urbervilles to his publisher.
1971-73. University of Kentucky. Postdoctoral Fellow.
Loose in America in the early seventies. Finally grasp, too late, the primacy of publication.

Universal Studios 1973

1973-76. University of Cambridge. Broodbank Research Fellow.
Centuries-old university where scholarship’s reign is unquestioned, gets career tracked.
1976-78. University of Minnesota. Research Assistant Professor.
The power and synergy of interdisciplinary. Acquiring the art of being prolific.
1979-Present. Illinois State University. 1979-85. The early years.
Following Noel Coward’s advice to Roger Moore to “never turn anything down” was the m.o. 1986. University of Hull. Sabbatical. The dictionary should have been consulted for the true meaning of sabbatical.
1986-96. Professor to Distinguished Professor.
Creation of family responsibilities and reinvention as a stress biologist coincide. Keynote speech by Stephen R. Covey of 7 Habits fame leads to development of mission statement, goal, and strategies for laboratory.
1997-Present. The future.
Is there life after distinguished professorship? The importance of watershed times.

Scientific relief will be provided by some discussion of three projects:

1. The Paracoccus denitrificans Cell Envelope. A project that gained little notoriety, but that had other benefits.
2. Stress Biology. Studies of how Staphylococcus aureus tolerates salt lead to studies of how Listeria monocytogenes grows in the refrigerator, and an entrée to food safety.
3. Staphylococcal Methicillin Resistance. A clinical and research problem that has waxed and waned and is waxing again.

A lifelong fascination with how small molecules and living organisms interact (biochemistry) has enabled Dr. Wilkinson to make some contributions to knowledge of the biology of microorganisms (microbiology).

The above was taken from Dr. Wilkinson's Distinguished Professorship Lecture program.

Address of a Duffer
Away from the laboratory and classroom Brian Wilkinson’s avocations, in addition to his family of course, are the blues (check out his blues reviews), and golf.

 



© 2003 Brian J. Wilkinson
bjwilkin@ilstu.edu
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