Alexander A.F. Gann
Editorial Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, 1989

email ganna@cshl.edu, phone (516) 422-4006, fax (516) 422-4095

After receiving my undergraduate degree from University College London, I spent most of the next ten years engaged in research. Those research years were spent first in Edinburgh, where I obtained my Ph.D. working on restriction enzymes with Noreen Murray; then, at Harvard, where I worked on mechanisms of gene regulation with Mark Ptashne; and finally, back at UCL, on newt limb regeneration with Jeremy Brockes. This led to a job as lecturer in Developmental Biology at Lancaster University (in the North of England) where, in addition to pursuing my interests in both regeneration and transcriptional regulation, I taught undergraduates.

Throughout, I have been intrigued by scientific publishing. This fascination began as soon as I encountered my first textbooks -- and noted the contrast between those that inspired and those that didn't -- and persisted as I was exposed to research journals and professional scientific publications. Indeed, reading the books and journals always brought me greater satisfaction than performing experiments. This preference led me to the journal Nature where I worked as an assistant biology editor for a year in 1991, and, more recently, to Cold Spring Harbor. Here I am engaged in acquiring and developing a range of books including lab manuals, monographs and textbooks. I am also a coauthor of two books: the 5th edition of Molecular Biology of the Gene (with James Watson and others); and Genes and Signals (with Mark Ptashne).