Ten questions with Dr Tom Wishart

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Ten questions with Dr Tom Wishart

1. What does innovation mean to you?  

It’s a catch-all term for something we all do and most of us probably don’t even realise. From small to big differences that change the way we think, refine or completely reinvent how we do something. 

2. What is your greatest failure?  

To try and achieve anything is to risk failure. It's how we learn. So by that measure, I have failed (and am failing) at a lot of things. But if you plan to keep trying then it is not necessarily failure as much as not succeeding YET. 

3. What is your greatest success?  

Personally - Marrying up. My wife is as clever and beautiful as ever. While I am increasingly grumpy and balding… 

Professionally – Falling in with an awesome team of like-minded researchers who can tackle some of the really big neuroscience problems of our age by working together. Without personal agenda, without ego. Just because it needs to be done. 

4. What is your greatest fear?  

Personally – The fear of missing out on important things at home AND getting soft – both from sitting behind a desk too much. 

Professionally – We work on neurodegenerative disorders. Most of my own work is aimed at diseases of childhood. Attending patient and family meetings helps reinforce the importance of what we do but one of my greatest fears every year, every meeting, is that we won't be able to make a difference to the kids we see within their unfairly short lifetime. 

5. What is your favourite book?  

For life lessons – Meditations – compiled notes of Marcus Aurelius. Written the best part of two thousand years ago the content is as valid now as then. He writes as someone who doesn’t want to be in a position of authority but does what is necessary because it needs to be done. 

For the family - Zog – by Julia Donaldson. I must have read that book a thousand times to the kids and it's pretty deep. The core message is that you don’t have to be what you are expected to be. As long as you are determined you can do whatever you set your mind to. 

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

I only have three friends. They are proper friends though so we don’t talk unless we have to. So I won't ask. 

7. What is the most important thing to you?  

Personally – family of course. 

Professionally – being surrounded by talented, determined and supportive colleagues. 

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

One of my very Scottish colleagues told me in his strong Glasgow accent “perfect is the enemy of good enough”. I really wish I had thought in those terms 20 years ago. I would probably still have a lot of hair. 

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

From my own research perspective, clear and effective delivery systems or routes of administration for therapies that enable comprehensive coverage of the nervous system. 

10. What is your greatest hope?   

That I don’t have to face my greatest fears…and in the words of Sandra Bullock as Agent Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality - “world peace” of course.