Ten questions with Dr Christine Tait-Burkard

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Dr Christine Tait-Burkard is a group leader at The Roslin Institute and an expert on coronaviruses and arteriviruses. 

Ten Questions with Dr Christine Tait-Burkard

1. What does innovation mean to you?

The finding of new solutions to problems that can be implemented into reality.

2. What is your greatest failure? 

Failures are the best way for us to grow and learn. I have failed at many things but as I always learned something from that experience, they turned into experiences.

3. What is your greatest success? 

Whilst generating the first generation of PRRSV-resistant pigs was certainly a great career success, my favourite success moments are when I see my students evolve, graduate, and succeed in their chosen career paths.

4. What is your greatest fear? 

Despite loving to and going hillwalking regularly, I am not very good with exposed heights.

5. What is your favourite book? 

Impossible to choose a single book really – there are too many good ones out there. In English, I like to read the classics from the Brontë sisters to Joyce to Hemingway; in German, I like the post-war literature of Heinrich Böll but also biographies of the less known, such as the ones by Eveline Hasler; in French, my all-time favourite remains “L’Amant” by Marguerite Duras.

6. What would your friends say your greatest strengths and weaknesses are? 

Weaknesses – not being able to say no and taking on too many things. Strengths – Accomplished, Caring, and making great strawberry jam.

7. What is the most important thing to you? 

People; whether it is my students, employees or colleagues but of course also my family and husband (and the cats).

8. Is there any advice you wish someone had given you? 

If I wouldn’t have made the mistakes I did, I would not be who I am now. In turn, based on my experiences, I would advise others that exploring and living in other countries opens your horizon and similarly does working with other specialities and industry when in academia.

9. What future innovation would you like to see happen in your lifetime? 

Such a tough choice – many! At the forefront must be the further development and use of stem cell therapies, gene therapy, personalised and affordable cancer therapy. Within my immediate field the implementation of genome editing technology to reduce food waste and address global challenges, such as global warming and food inequality, and the further development, streamlined regulation, and implementation of “building block” vaccines. 

10. What is your greatest hope?  

That decision makers stop thinking in 4/5-year political terms to find the courage to tackle some of the big challenges and make the tough decisions to bring about change.