Page 41 - Eclipse - Autumn 2015

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Robin Franklin (1988)
I wanted to be a vet for as long as I can remember. I always had an interest in animals and had, as a young boy, been a keen birdwatcher, zoo enthusiast and avid reader of books by Gerald Durrell, with whom I felt some af nity, being, like him, part of a family with little interest in things biological.
I was an unusual student in that I thoroughly enjoyed
the preclinical subjects, and was inspired by the neurophysiology lectures given by David Lodge. This
led to me intercalating at University College, immersing myself in neuroscience and grappling with the essentially philosophical question of pain in non-human species. Much of this year was spent with James Wood, my
great friend ever since RVC days, and now Head of the Cambridge Vet School. I then spent three of the happiest years of my life, ‘seeing practice’ in north Devon, and ful lling my lifelong ambition by qualifying as a veterinary surgeon.
By the time I nished at the RVC I had already lined up
a Wellcome Trust funded PhD in neuroscience at the Cambridge Vet School, which had a strong neuroscience programme. This suited me well – I could do neuroscience but remain in a familiar veterinary environment.
I remained at the Cambridge Vet School for 26 years. Although I initially took a keen interest in neurology, running the neurology course for many years and publishing a number of veterinary neurology papers, my research interests took me away from frontline veterinary medicine and further into the depths of CNS regeneration biology.
I followed my PhD with a Wellcome Trust Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1991-1994) and a Wellcome Trust Research Development Fellowship (1994-1999), which allowed me to establish my own research group. In 1999 I became a Wellcome Trust-funded Lecturer, then a Senior Lecturer (2000) and Reader (2002). In 2005 I became only the second person ever at Cambridge Vet School to obtain a personal chair (following my PhD mentor Bill Blakemore), becoming Professor of Neuroscience.
In 2014 I was appointed to the Chair of Stem Cell Medicine at the University’s Clinical (Medical) School
and also became Head of Translational Science at the Wellcome Trust-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. This meant moving my research team from the Vet School to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
During my research career I have explored how adult CNS stem cell can make replacement oligodendrocytes – the cells that make CNS myelin and that are lost in multiple sclerosis (MS). Lost myelin sheaths are replaced by oligodendrocytes newly generated from CNS stems cells in a process called remyelination. I have pioneered the discovery of the mechanisms of remyelination and
am now considered the world’s leading expert. My work is laboratory based, taking advantage of many of the extraordinarily enabling technical advances that have occurred in molecular and cellular biology over the last few decades. One of our recent discoveries has lead to a
clinical trial of a novel regenerative medicine in MS patients. Another interest has been the glial cells of the olfactory system, where axon regeneration occurs very ef ciently. This is because of a highly specialized glial cell called the olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC). My laboratory was the rst to demonstrate the regenerative properties of OECs when transplanted into other regions of the CNS. This
work eventually led to my teaming up with Nick Jeffery, a veterinary neurologist and Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Cambridge Vet School. Together with Nicolas Granger (now at Bristol Vet School), we conducted the rst cell transplantation trials in naturally-occurring spinal cord injury (SCI). Using domestic dogs with SCI we transplanted OECs harvested from their own noses. The trial had very positive outcomes with many of the paralysed dogs recovering a remarkable degree of function. This work attracted an astonishing degree of media coverage (youtube.com/watch?v=1OEK3qj1axo). It was in part
for this work that I was awarded the 2014 Kennel Club International Award.
Although, for the most part, my laboratory is manned
by scientists (and a few medics), I have had many vets undertake their research training in my lab, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers within the profession. My work has been mainly funded by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council and the UK Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Although my career has taken me away from veterinary medicine I remain immensely proud of and loyal to my profession, and especially to the RVC. I continue to
be especially enthusiastic about supporting veterinary graduates to pursue careers in biomedical sciences, for which I believe they are ideally and uniquely suited.