Tom Hawke
I was born and raised in Brantford, ON. Canada. As a kid, I spent a great deal of time playing lacrosse and hockey. When I was not playing sports, I spent a lot of my youth playing outside in the forests near my house. Little time was spent watching TV, but when I did, I usually had to watch whatever my Dad wanted to watch because we only had one TV and no cable! (can you imagine!!). My Dad loved nature shows and although I did not realize it, I was learning and developing an interest in biology while I was watching these shows. I attended Pauline Johnson Collegiate where I was interested in science and athletics. I was a good student though I admit that I was most interested in sports. When it was time to choose a university, I decided to attend the University of Guelph where their B.Sc. program in Human Biology would allow me to study the science of exercise. I was particularly interested in how the body worked and so courses like human physiology and anatomy were my favourites. Even into my 3rd year of university I was still unsure what I wanted to do when I graduated. I was playing Jr. A lacrosse in the summers and thought maybe something like physiotherapy would be a good career for me. In my last year of university I did an independent study research course with Dr. Mike Lindinger and from that moment I was hooked on research. Designing experiments, performing the studies and analyzing the data was fun and interesting but what I really got excited about was trying to put all the results together and figure out what it all meant. It was like I was trying to solve the mysteries of the human body and how it worked.
I stayed at Guelph to continue on for an MSc with Dr. Lindinger where we investigated the role of caffeine in maintaining the muscle’s ability to exercise beyond normal limits. In essence, we were figuring out how to enhance exercise performance. Dr. Lindinger and I went to the University of Oslo, Norway to do some of our studies as they had some equipment there that was state of the art and allowed us to make some measurements that we otherwise would never have been able to make. During my PhD, Dr. Lindinger and I continued our studies into how caffeine enhanced performance but we now focused on molecules inside the muscle that were responsible for improving muscle function. To perform some of these studies, I trained with Dr. David Allen at the University of Sydney, Australia. There I learned to measure changes in calcium within single muscle cells. Very cool and exciting techniques that I still use in my lab today.
While at the University of Guelph, I remained very active in athletics: playing varsity lacrosse, coaching the women’s varsity lacrosse team and even playing a year of professional lacrosse for the Rochester Knighthawks. Combining athletics and academics was difficult but I learned a lot from it, including time management. Now that I have a lab of my own I try to encourage my students to remain active and carry on with their external interests.
When I graduated with my PhD from the University of Guelph, I went to work in Texas. I worked with Dr. Dan Garry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. There I was able to study how muscle repairs itself after it is injured. This is where I learned about muscle stem cells and how they help keep muscles functioning normally in healthy, active people (and how in unhealthy people they can become less functional).
It was in Texas that I met Dr. Kanatous. We became good friends and I was able to learn about all the cool research he was doing in Antarctica with the Weddell Seals. I was offered a faculty position at York University in Toronto in 2003 where I started my own research lab investigating how muscle repair was affected by diseases such as diabetes and muscular dystrophy. Though Dr. Kanatous was still in Texas, we talked and emailed each other often. When the time came for him to go back to Antarctica he asked me to be on his research team. With my expertise in how muscle grows and repairs itself, he felt I would be a perfect fit for his research project. The rest, as they say, is history!
In January 2009, I was recruited to McMaster University. I am really excited about being at McMaster as I am not only able to continue my exciting research on muscle growth and repair, but also teach Anatomy to the medical students (something I enjoy very much). My bosses at McMaster are also very excited to have me continue my research with Dr. Kanatous on Weddell Seals. They feel this work is exciting and important, and believe the Polar Science outreach program we have with YesICan-Science.ca will help encourage and enthuse a whole new generation of scientists. I could not agree more!
I am often asked how I got to be where I am today; ‘did I always know what I wanted to do?’. The short answer is No, I just followed my interests and it led me here. My wife once asked me “if you were not a scientist, what would you be?”. I took a long time to think about it and said “I don’t know!”. She said, I think you would be a detective because you like to ‘solve things’. I don’t know about that but what I do know is that I love what I do and am excited to come to work everyday. I think about my research all the time and even wake in the middle of the night to write some experimental ideas down. My advice to everyone is to follow what is of interest to you. This will make you happy in the long run and that really is the most important thing.
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Recent Blogs From Tom Hawke
| Topic | Author | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final Thoughts on Polar Science 2009 | Tom Hawke | Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 20:11 EST | 0 |
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