Charting a life of success

Jun 11 2007 By James Barton, The Journal

Professor Malcolm Young has been making headlines after discovering a cure for the MRSA superbug and is considering a stock market flotation for his drug discovery company e-Therapeutics - yet it could all have been so different. James Barton uncovers Prof Young's pop music past.

He is a man with an impressive academic background, renowned in his chosen field - mathematical neuroscience - as a world leading authority. But the now-Professor Malcolm Young didn't want to go to university.

"I went to boarding school from age seven to 18," says Young. "After that lengthy process I was really not ready to continue to study in an academic environment. Anyway at the time, I believed academic pursuits were only something you got involved with if you were no good at sports and I was."

This attitude is surprising considering Young's later success in academia and with scientific business and also given that he was academically gifted enough to take both his O-levels and A-levels a year early.

You get the feeling that here is a man who likes to court controversy, or at least steer his own course.

Sitting in his company's board room, the 46-year-old still exudes confidence but always with an underlying humour and sense of fun which is disarming.

Anyone over a certain age who uses the word cool, even unwittingly, may seem a little ridiculous. But when Young does it, which is quite often, it's endearing, almost boyish.

In 1978 he left school and turned down a prized university place at Bristol which must have been rather upsetting for his parents - his father was a fighter pilot in the RAF and flew Meteors, the first jets in the RAF.

It is at this point where things take a decidedly unexpected turn.

"I became a session musician and formed two bands in the post punk era, Vitus Dance and The Gods. We had a degree of success although I never earned any money at it," he smiles.

"Deciding on a career in music, particularly in the pre-internet days, was rather like buying a pools coupon or doing the lottery - you could be successful but only a tiny proportion of people manage it."

Despite the appalling odds, Young's bands supported some of the biggest names in the pop world.

He says: "We played The Marquee in London, a hugely famous venue at the time where we supported Toyah (who was then riding high in the charts at the time). From what I remember, it went down very well." (Young can play both bass and lead guitar).

It is at this point where Young's initial reluctance to go into detail is countered by his enjoyment of recalling such obviously cherished memories of a quite remarkable period of his life.

"We supported Generation X, fronted by Billy Idol, at The Granary, Bristol, in 1980. I remember Idol being a very impressive character. Most headline acts tend to go off to their hotels after the sound check before they perform but he just hung around all afternoon and played R and B numbers with the rest of the musicians. I remember him being an extremely talented musician and singer.

"We also played the John Peel sessions at the Maida Vale recording studios in London. I remember suddenly being surrounded by all these enormous skinheads, which unnerved me because at the time skinheads didn't exactly look favourably on post-punks.

"It turned out that they were there to record as well - I found out later it was the group Madness."

Young is now thoroughly enjoying talking about this period in his life. He tells me about being managed by XTC's manager and a story about nearly deafening the audience in Western-Super-Mare at a gig when the PA system was turned too loud by mistake.

But his two-year adventure was failing to pay the bills and Young moved on, still stubbornly resisting the academic path, choosing instead to become a welder for an agricultural tank maker.

Young says: "Although you might not think it, I really enjoyed my time as a welder and found there were creative aspects to the job.

"It gave you a sense of immediate reward and it was tremendously rewarding when you finished a job."

Eventually, in 1983, Young had to confront the fact that he was destined for an entirely different path.

"I remember noticing that I seemed to be clever," he muses, "and one day I was watching the TV and a young psychology academic John Searle was pitted against Nobel Prize winner for psychology Sir John Eccles.

"I don't remember the exact arguments that were used but I do remember Searle cut a very human figure and was highly engaging, articulate and funny. It convinced me that you could have a career as an academic and not be dry, dull and boring."

Following this revelation Young finally took the step and applied to do psychology at Bristol University, for which he was accepted. From this point on his career progressed rapidly; he had found his niche.

"I was already interested in how the brain worked and my first lecturer was the eminent psychologist Fernando Cervero. I remember spending many hours working on my first dissertation for him and expecting him to be full of praise but all he said when he gave me it back was, (here Young adopts a heavy Spanish accent) `like all psychologists you have scant regard for the facts'."

Three years later Young received a first from Bristol but although he worked hard he was surprised with his success.

"I had basically spent three years arguing against the people lecturing me who believed that the functions of the brain were not constrained by its physiological constraints. These cognitive psychologists didn't think the actual physical details of the brain mattered at all. I disagreed strongly and spent my entire three years trying to prove them wrong."

He adds: "It was here I learnt the importance of using computers to analyse data and how useful this could be for testing results quickly and safely."

He followed this with a PhD in mathematical neuroscience at St Andrews University in Scotland.

"My tutor at St Andrews was perhaps the most aggressive man I have ever met but he taught me an extremely important lesson: always be sure of your data when arguing your case. I saw students who hadn't done the necessary rigorous research to back up their arguments reduced to tears."

Whilst studying for his doctorate, Young won a place on a Royal Society research fellowship to study at the Riken Institute in Japan.

"The only problem," he states proudly, "was I had to complete my doctorate in double quick time because my place would only be held open for a short time."

In the event, Young completed the his PhD in two years and a term, about eight months early, and promptly flew out to Japan.

"It was here where I had my single most productive 12 months, my annus mirabilis (year of wonders).

"I produced three pieces of work on the operation of the brain which were well received and published in various scientific magazines providing me with a profile within the science and beyond."

Such has been Young's influence on the subject that he is partly responsible for the ascendancy of what is called cognitive neuroscience - the study of the operation of the brain and its actual physicality.

After Japan, Young was able to study at Oxford University before being offered a prestigious professorship at Newcastle University at the age of 34.

"My move to Newcastle from Oxford in 1994 was very exciting, I took a large number of very bright people with me. At the high point I had 23 Oxford University research staff and two from the Salk Institute in San Diego which produced an incredibly dynamic environment.

"It was at this point we worked on one of the most important biological mysteries - predicting what is going to happen when bits of the brain go wrong."

Young and his team worked out through their computations that if one part of the brain was damaged, the functions lost were restored if there was corresponding damage in an entirely different but related part of the brain.

"We worked out that the brain had competing bi-lateral systems," he says.

This groundbreaking discovery was subsequently featured in a well-read scientific journal and soon Young had a knock on his door from a transatlantic visitor from a pharmaceutical company.

"I can't even name the person, who has since retired, but it was an important moment which opened my eyes to the possibilities of the type of work we were doing and its commercial implications."

In essence, the mathematical computations Young and his team used to understand the complex networks of the brain could be transposed into breaking down cells in proteins to establish potential new drugs and their effects on the body.

He explains: "By attacking proteins you destroy cells, by destroying cells you change their function and come up with new properties. We began the process of creating new drugs to address different problems," he says.

In July 2003 e-Therapeutics was spun out of Newcastle University and Young was appointed chief executive. His work is considered so valuable to the university that he has been put on a three-year secondment from his role as pro vice chancellor.

He says: "We have made amazing progress and have attracted about £5m worth of funding from industry and so far one of the best parts of what we do is that, through using powerful computers processing huge quantities of data, we can ensure that any bad side-effects have been completely eradicated before the clinical trials stage."

Young says that he has, in effect, industrialised drugs research.

"People in the past have discovered drugs, using chemistry and biology. Most of these people are chemists and biologists. What they're not is mathematical, complex systems scientists. We're starting from a place they're not thinking about and don't know much about.

"We're able to predict what will affect a biological system. In order to do this you need maths and a lot of computers."

The company has made a breakthrough not only with MRSA but also in the treatment of asthma, depression, cancer, diabetes and the breakdown of cholesterol.

And e-Therapeutics employs 20 people in its Fenham office, eight people in India and one in Canada.

"It costs $1bn to bring a genuinely new compound to market, and conventional drugs research can see some or all that money spent before a side-effect comes to light and the compound is rendered useless," he says. "With our mathematical techniques, this waste can be avoided."

The company is now ready to start its clinical trials programme and the next round of funding and Malcolm will be looking for an eight figure sum - upwards of £10m.

"We will either be raising the money through a public offering on the Alternative Investment Market, selling to a large healthcare company, or raising the finances privately and remaining an independent entity."

Its all a far cry from his brush with the music industry but Young has recently started playing the guitar again.

"I didn't play for years," he explains, "but I recently bought a guitar and music software off eBay. It is amazing how much fun it is when you don't have to do it for a living - I've been making some great music."

The CV

September 2005: Pro-vice chancellor for strategic development, University of Newcastle.

July 2003: Chairman and chief executive, e-Therapeutics Ltd.

August 2002 - September 2005: Provost, Faculty of Science Agriculture and Engineering, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

March 2001 - August 2002: Director of the Institute for Neuroscience, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

March 1995: Visiting professor of the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, and the Agency for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (MITI) at the Division of Neuroscience, Electrotechnical Laboratory, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

October 1994: Head of department and chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

October 1993 - October 1994: British Telecommunications research fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.

October 1992 - October 1994: Royal Society University research fellow at the University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford.

January 1991 - October 1992: Medical Research Council researcher at the University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford.

October 1991: Visiting research fellow of the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology (MITI) at the Division of Neuroscience, Electrotechnical Laboratory, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

March 1990 - January 1991: Royal Society Science Exchange research fellow, at the Laboratory for Neural Information Processing, Frontier Research Program, The RIKEN Institute, Saitama, Japan.

October 1987 - March 1990: PhD, mathematical neuroscience, University of St Andrews, Scotland.

October 1984 - June 1987: BSc with first class honours, psychology, Bristol University.

1978 - 1984: Working in industry.

The questionnaire

What car do you drive?

A Land Rover Discovery and an old Lotus Elan.

What's your favourite restaurant?

Moti's in Roppongi, Tokyo.

Who or what makes you laugh?

Most things. Also Steve Coogan.

What's your favourite book?

Probably the Silmarillion, or Churchill's biography of Marlborough. I like complexity.

What's your favourite film?

The 13th Warrior. Or maybe Predator, 12 Monkeys, or the Fifth Element.

What was the last album you bought?

System 7, Encantado.

What's your ideal job, other than your current one?

Explorer/sailing boat skipper, à la Peter Blake.

If you had a talking parrot, what's the first thing you'd teach it to say?

"Never use a pronoun before you have identified the noun to which it refers".

What's your greatest fear?

Disaster befalling my children.

What's the best piece of business advice you have ever received?

"The art of business is to wait for some luck before the money runs out".

Worst business advice?

"Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves".

What's your poison?

Islay single malts.

What newspaper do you read, other than The Journal?

None.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?

I think it was a couple of hundred for working on the debentures desk at the Royal Exchange - or it might have been £20 for humping the PA gear into rock gigs.

How do you keep fit?

I normally go to the gym each morning after dropping my daughter off at school, in preference to sitting in traffic. Plus sailing, cycling, football/tree-climbing in the garden with my son.

What's your most irritating habit?

Correcting other people's syntax.

What's your biggest extravagance?

Well, I'm having a look at an old Aston Martin at the moment, together with the appropriate attire for my lady companion in the Aston, which is a fake fur coat and strappy heels.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/admire?

Einstein. Or maybe Marlborough. Or Rommel. Or perhaps Steve Hillage.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?

Bert Rutan, Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, and Scary Spice.

How would you like to be remembered?

Fondly!