Jean Hanson’s role as inspirational teacher, mentor and researcher

Abstract

My first encounter with Jean was as a schoolboy attending an interview for a place on the biology degree programme. When I entered the room, she and David Hall were sitting across the table from me, she beamed at me, welcoming me into the interview and helping me to relax. She asked if there was anything scientific that particularly interested me, and when I started to reply she leant across the table, exuding interest in what I had to say, and encouraging me to tell her more. It was a great boost to my confidence that someone so eminent should display such interest in what a mere schoolboy might have to say. I had the great good fortune to have Jean as my scientific tutor during my first term. At the first tutorial she disarmed our small group by announcing that these tutorials would have to concentrate on muscle contraction, because that was the only topic she knew enough about. The tutorials were fascinating, as Jean showed us how what we knew about muscle was based on doing good experiments. I particularly recall the occasion when a tutorial was interrupted by a knock on her office door, and a researcher in her group announced that he had a fascinating new specimen in the electron microscope, was unsure what to make of it, and would Jean please come and have a look. She turned to us, obviously excited, and asked if we would mind terribly if we went with her to have a look. So we gathered round the microscope as Jean sat down at it. In those days the electron image was displayed on a dim green phosphor screen, so Jean turned off the room lights, and we all peered in as she turned up the magnification and began to examine the specimen. This was for me fantastic: to see at first hand the excitement of research at an early stage of my undergraduate life. Jean’s enthusiasm for research, and her ability to engage and enthuse those around her were innate and infectious. From that moment my undergraduate career was focussed at getting good enough grades to be accepted for postgraduate study of muscle contraction, and preferably at King’s. Her lectures on muscle to her undergraduates radiated the same enthusiasm for the subject that her tutorials had. She engaged the attention of the class, and communicated the excitement she felt at the new results that were emerging at that time (Figure 1). She made us feel that we were at the limits of knowledge of the muscle contraction mechanism, and we wanted to know more. She stressed how new knowledge had come from well-designed experiments, often harnessing newlydeveloped technologies, and the practical classes of the module reflected that: we used electron microscopes, and X-ray and light diffraction to see for ourselves how the new data were obtained. As an undergraduate, I was not really aware of how much work Jean, together with Sir John Randall, had put in to instigate the School of Biological Sciences, to pioneer the modular course programmes that I had found attractive when browsing the King’s prospectus as a schoolboy. Jean had worked to put in place the interdisciplinary links that enabled undergraduates to explore a wide range of modules across all the departments of the School. Cell biology modules were taught in the department where the best cell biologists were, molecular biology likewise, so as a student with an interest in these areas, I shuttled between Botany, Zoology, Physiology and Biophysics Departments. Breaking down of barriers between departments, so that students can learn from the best in a variety of fields is still an ongoing process in our universities: the School of Biological Sciences at King’s over 30 years ago was an example of how to do it well.