Alan Hall has made his mark in cancer research, but he admits he fell into it almost by accident. He started off in chemistry, studying enzymes as a PhD student at Harvard University. It was the mid-1970s and the molecular biology revolution was under way. He realized that he was more likely to find a long-term, productive future in molecular biology than in enzymology. (see CV)

“It was clear molecular biology was having an impact on virtually every area of biology,” says Hall. And so the stage was set for a career that will take him from Britain to New York this spring, to head the cell biology programme at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Wanting to switch into molecular biology after his PhD, Hall looked for postdoctoral positions in molecular biology labs. His first project at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland didn't work out so well, so he went for another postdoc at the University of Zurich. It was there that Hall mastered the tools and techniques of molecular biology. But he was still looking for an area in which to apply them.

It so happened at the time that Robin Weiss, the director of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, was looking to hire some molecular biologists. Hall was put in touch with him and he landed his first job there in 1981.

It was an exciting time to be doing cancer research. Biologists were beginning to discover the first human cancer genes. Hall and his close collaborator, Chris Marshall, soon became part of this group. In the early 1980s, they identified the third and final of the Ras genes, which are involved in 30% of cancers.

After 12 years there, Hall was looking for a change, and so he went to University College London. In his twelfth year there, as he began thinking about his next move (Hall jokes about having a “12-year itch”), he was invited to give a seminar at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. He received an e-mail a few months later about an opportunity to work there. The centre's cell biology programme is growing and the chance to help shape that growth was an incentive for Hall to join the centre.

He says postdocs these days need to be more directed earlier in their careers than he was. He advises young scientists to be careful that they don't always latch on to the latest fad. “Some fads, in retrospect, end up being minor technological breakthroughs,” says Hall. Although he switched to molecular biology, it turned out, luckily for him, to be much more than just a passing fad.