Martina McGloughlin's first experience with the budding U.S.
biotechnology industry during the early 1980s hastened her return to
Ireland. But last year when the "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" wanted to
know the risks and benefits to society from the bioengineering of
crops, McGloughlin was back in the picture with answers.McGloughlin, associate director of the UC Davis biotechnology program, fearlessly places herself in the glaring spotlight to answer questions posed by members from industry, private and public organizations, agricultural commodity groups and the media, as well as university staff, faculty members and students. Many in her audience are biotech advocates, but some are skeptics.
"People are nervous about technologies they don't understand. My single most important function is probably acting as a resource on biotechnology issues for both campus folks and the public," McGloughlin says. Faculty, students, postdoctoral students and staff research associates, as well as companies, Cooperative Extension personnel, government agencies and overseas visitors all have directed questions to McGloughlin for answers.
There is a UC systemwide biotechnology program, but UC Davis is the only campus with its own formal program.
McGloughlin found her way to her current position by a circuitous route. She holds three master's degrees, one in molecular genetics from Trinity College in Dublin, and biotechnology and business degrees from University College in Dublin. But it was McGloughlin's former husband who compelled them to move to the California's Central Valley because of his interest in farming equipment.
Between her undergraduate and graduate studies, McGloughlin worked for the Irish government as a liaison with the forensics science laboratory in the justice department, where scientific evidence was analyzed for legal proceedings. She also tried something a little more scientific as the first female assistant assay master, "a position traditionally handed down through the male lineage since the Middle Ages," she explains.
The assay masters establish the quality of precious metals and stamp platinum, gold and silver articles.
When McGloughlin returned to her graduate studies, she was awarded an American Industrial Biotechnology Fellowship which brought her to General Electric Co. in Schnectedy, N.Y. She began work in a lab founded by the first scientist to win a patent for an engineered organism. Her project was to genetically tinker with a bacterium, Thiobacillus ferroxidans, to make it leach silver and uranium from mine tailings.
Soon after her arrival in 1982, the state of New York sued General Electric for polluting local rivers and streams with polychlorinated biphenols. The research focus changed overnight for the entire molecular biology group. The new target was to engineer a bacterium that could digest this toxin.
"Because G.E. was an electronics company, they expected results every week," McGloughlin says. "Bio-organisms don't work on that kind of schedule." The corporate pressure and unrealistic goals damaged her enthusiasm to do industry-style research. This combined with routine protests every Friday outside the gates of G.E. against the company's nuclear submarine engine project further motivated her return to Dublin where she continued to work on her degrees.
The program was revived under the leadership of molecular and cell biology professor Roy Doi in 1989. Jerry Powell, a professor of hematology and oncology at the medical school, has recently been appointed as the director. Since it was officially relaunched in 1990, McGloughlin has played a major part in crafting the program.
She has compiled a comprehensive list of the research interests of UC Davis faculty and can quickly match technical inquiries with the appropriate experts. She also organizes frequent seminars that feature industry speakers as well as students and faculty members connected with the biotechnology program.
Under the program's aegis, she organizes short laboratory courses on the latest molecular biology techniques for faculty and senior research associates as well as summer courses through the University Extension for community-college faculty.
She also has developed regular workshops that highlight the role biotechnology plays in a broad spectrum of topics such as criminal investigations and intellectual property issues. She brings in experts from these fields for large audiences of Cooperative Extension and government-agency personnel, company and university scientists, lawyers, FBI agents, reporters, foreign students and business people.
McGloughlin is proud of the program's grant with the University Extension outreach program. The two summer courses she helps organize at UC Davis focus on research techniques that help community college instructors stay up to date with the constant technological advancement of research techniques. She and the grant coordinator go to college class rooms during the year to talk about various applications of biotechnology and advise instructors about approaches to procure laboratory supplies from companies at prices that fit their colleges' budgets.
The biotechnology program runs a training grant for graduate students under the directorship of Doi. The responsibility for helping to educate graduate students in many biotechnology disciplines and nominating them for grants falls on 50 faculty members and 28 company trainers.
McGloughlin's efforts have helped to secure fellowships from biotechnology companies like Chiron, Genentech, Roche Biosciences, Calgene, Novo Nordisk Biotech and, most recently through the Students First campaign, Amgen and Monsanto. These fellowships fund first-year graduate students who spend most of their time in classes. Students are supported by the National Institutes of Health Biotechnology training grant after their first year, and students who receive these grants must complete an internship in one of the affiliated companies.
"Most of them simply want an unbiased story. They just want the science presented in a clear way so it can be understood, and their questions and concerns answered," she says.
"You also have to keep your head," she says, recounting an experience as a guest on San Francisco's KQED radio Forum program. The live talk show received comments from a caller opposed to biotechnology who claimed that "all scientists have sold their souls to Washington, and they are all whores," McGloughlin recounts. The caller then went on to denigrate McGloughlin personally.
In her response, McGloughlin says she concentrated on the large audience listening throughout the Bay Area.
"You just have to answer calmly and try and get a rational and factual message across."
Meg Gordon was the science-writing intern for News Service for fall and winter quarters.
(Neil Michel/Axiom photo)
