Page 158 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS Right: Tom Slevin
working on an
experiment with
students in the lab
Microbiology
Ater my Leaving Cert in 1985 I did Natural Sciences in Trinity with a two-year specialisaion in
Microbiology. I graduated in 1990 with an honours degree having taken a year out (1986 to 1987)
to travel. Following graduaion I went to New York with a Donnelly lotery green card and worked
as a research assistant for Dr Vincent Racaniello at Columbia University on Poliovirus where I
was truly biten by the “Science Bug”. Ater twelve months in New York I moved to the Pasteur
Insitute in Lille, France and then to Milano, Italy to work for an internaional pharmaceuical
company. Here I was very inluenced by a certain Dr Khalid Islam who encouraged me to return to
Ireland to do a PhD which I duly did in the Microbiology Department from 1995 to 1998. I studied
Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that has been associated with stomach ulcers and cancer.
I then returned to Italy to do post-doctoral work, again with Helicobacter pylori with
Professor Cesare Montecucco at the University of Padova (Padua) for three years. This was
followed by a brief associaion with a small start-up diagnosic company located in Brescia from
2002 and 2004. Since Septemebr, 2004 I have been working as a Senior Scienist at the Isituto
Zooproilaico Sperimentale delle Venezie, a naional animal health insitute near Padova (www.
izsvenesie.it). My work focuses primarily on avian inluenza but I have also done some work on
rabies. More recently I have been concentraing on a herpes virus in oysters which has been
William Dundon with his wreaking havoc in the osyter industry in France and now appears to have arrived in Italy. I publish
two boys regularly in peer-reviewed scieniic journals, am on the ediiorial board of two
journals (Virus Genes and Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health)
and I have published a book on bacterial infecious diseases for the non-scienist
(Malicious Microbes). I have also travelled extensively in several developing
countries in collaboraion with FAO (The UN Food and Agricultural Organisaion)
and IAEA (Internaional Atomic Energy Agency) as an expert, trainer and workshop
organiser in Avian Inluenza diagnosics.
My Italian wife and I have two boys.
School inluences in my choice of career? Ironically, perhaps, I only studied Chemistry and
Physics. However, I can credit Fr Kyran Fitzgerald, who was our career guidance counsellor, to
Biology teacher,
Eban Stewart some extent. He would call us individually out of class to talk and so the more ime you spent
with him the more class you missed. I think I took advantage of this somewhat, and so when he
asked me what I wanted to do, I listed as many degree courses as possible and he duly supplied
me with the relevant material. In amongst the brochures he gave me was informaion on a course
in Biotechnology at the NIHE in Glasnevin. To be honest, prior to talking with Fr Fitzgerald I didn’t
even know what Biotechnology was, but reading the brochure I found it interesing. It became
the irst choice on my CAO form but, as it turned out, I didn’t get the points required and ended
up in Trinity instead
William Dundon
Class of 1985
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS Right: Tom Slevin
working on an
experiment with
students in the lab
Microbiology
Ater my Leaving Cert in 1985 I did Natural Sciences in Trinity with a two-year specialisaion in
Microbiology. I graduated in 1990 with an honours degree having taken a year out (1986 to 1987)
to travel. Following graduaion I went to New York with a Donnelly lotery green card and worked
as a research assistant for Dr Vincent Racaniello at Columbia University on Poliovirus where I
was truly biten by the “Science Bug”. Ater twelve months in New York I moved to the Pasteur
Insitute in Lille, France and then to Milano, Italy to work for an internaional pharmaceuical
company. Here I was very inluenced by a certain Dr Khalid Islam who encouraged me to return to
Ireland to do a PhD which I duly did in the Microbiology Department from 1995 to 1998. I studied
Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that has been associated with stomach ulcers and cancer.
I then returned to Italy to do post-doctoral work, again with Helicobacter pylori with
Professor Cesare Montecucco at the University of Padova (Padua) for three years. This was
followed by a brief associaion with a small start-up diagnosic company located in Brescia from
2002 and 2004. Since Septemebr, 2004 I have been working as a Senior Scienist at the Isituto
Zooproilaico Sperimentale delle Venezie, a naional animal health insitute near Padova (www.
izsvenesie.it). My work focuses primarily on avian inluenza but I have also done some work on
rabies. More recently I have been concentraing on a herpes virus in oysters which has been
William Dundon with his wreaking havoc in the osyter industry in France and now appears to have arrived in Italy. I publish
two boys regularly in peer-reviewed scieniic journals, am on the ediiorial board of two
journals (Virus Genes and Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health)
and I have published a book on bacterial infecious diseases for the non-scienist
(Malicious Microbes). I have also travelled extensively in several developing
countries in collaboraion with FAO (The UN Food and Agricultural Organisaion)
and IAEA (Internaional Atomic Energy Agency) as an expert, trainer and workshop
organiser in Avian Inluenza diagnosics.
My Italian wife and I have two boys.
School inluences in my choice of career? Ironically, perhaps, I only studied Chemistry and
Physics. However, I can credit Fr Kyran Fitzgerald, who was our career guidance counsellor, to
Biology teacher,
Eban Stewart some extent. He would call us individually out of class to talk and so the more ime you spent
with him the more class you missed. I think I took advantage of this somewhat, and so when he
asked me what I wanted to do, I listed as many degree courses as possible and he duly supplied
me with the relevant material. In amongst the brochures he gave me was informaion on a course
in Biotechnology at the NIHE in Glasnevin. To be honest, prior to talking with Fr Fitzgerald I didn’t
even know what Biotechnology was, but reading the brochure I found it interesing. It became
the irst choice on my CAO form but, as it turned out, I didn’t get the points required and ended
up in Trinity instead
William Dundon
Class of 1985
