Ten questions with Dr Gregor Gorjanc

 

Dr Gregor Gorjanc leads of the HighlanderLab at The Roslin Institute. This extraordinary person is developing genetic solutions to help tackle global environmental and food supply challenges.

Ten questions with Dr Gregor Gorjanc

 

1. What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation will mean different things to different people because we all have different needs and interests. The part that excites me about innovation is when you work on a topic in a particular domain and you figure out an interesting application or extension in another domain. Sometimes, innovation is ”just” finding that spark, when several stars align, and you can advance your work or you find an interesting application of your existing work.

 

2. What has been your biggest success?

My path! I come from Slovenia, which is a beautiful, but small country with limited opportunities for a wide-reaching impact in my domain. Through collaboration, I have built a global network of colleagues and visited many places. While writing this, I am at an important conference (WCGALP, our Olympics!) and it’s a pleasure to meet colleagues from all around the world and introduce our lab members to this network. Not bad for a bit of an introvert!

 

3. What failure has helped shape you?

Nobody likes failures, but we should really see them as stepping stones towards a goal! I had a fair share of failures and expect more of them! Not that long ago, a reviewer ruined my fellowship application by saying I have no leadership potential!

 

4. What is most important to you?

I enjoy working with people and value collaboration. Collaborations make life much more interesting and enjoyable! They do require effort and nurture, including honest feedback.

 

5. What book do you recommend to others?

To make this advice relevant to a wide audience, I recommend the book “Building a Second Brain” by Thiago Forte. This book helped me organise my life, manage information overload, and unleash creativity.

 

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

Maybe that I try being a nice person.

 

7. What scares you?

On a global level, I deeply think about how we will feed all the people without destroying our planet. It’s a very pressing problem. I am excited our research is contributing to addressing this problem.

On a personal level, I wonder which future technology will remove me from the forefront.

 

8. What piece of advice has stuck with you?

Fake it till you make it!

 

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

One from data science: that we will be able to analyse huge datasets with ease and extract meaningful information.

One from genetics: that we will be able to estimate the effect of every single piece of DNA on life.

One from breeding: that we will use the previous two innovations to turn food production to net-zero activity on a global scale.

 

10. What gives you hope?

The creativity of the human race!