Mr Colin Gordon

Colin Gordon is the academic leader of the histopathology stream within the Bachelor of Laboratory Medicine (honours) at the University of South Australia, coordinating the senior courses within this program and teaching into all areas of this stream.  This role also encompasses the leadership of the histopathology teaching and research laboratories at City East, including professional staff teams.  Colin also provides consultancy for research facilities at City West campus.

Colin is the Program Director and course coordinator for all courses within the Graduate Certificate of Surgical Pathology Preparation. This is a niche professional program, delivered entirely externally, supporting the upskilling of medical scientists/technicians.  This unique program has responded to the National Pathology Accreditation Advisory Council’s requirements for training programs to address job expansion / professional practice towards development of clinical scientists within the NATA accredited medical testing environment.

Colin graduated from the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT now UniSA) in 1985 and worked across the SA pathology network as a multidisciplinary scientist (Flinders Medical Centre, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Institute of Medical & Veterinary Science (Adelaide & Pt. Lincoln) before being recruited back to the SAIT to support the extensive practical based teaching across all the Medical Laboratory Science programs.  He developed a niche in histopathology teaching and research based support, furthering his role as the leader in this area, including invited chapters in professional texts.  Colin completed a Masters Degree in Biomedical Science in 2005 (UniSA), focusing on the development of the small bowel during weaning in a collaboration with the Department of Gastroenterology at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide.  During this time, he developed an expertise with on immunolabelling techniques, interpretation and applications.

Teaching:  Colin a is also a passionate and engaging teacher across face to face and virtual classroom platforms.  His teaching philosophy is to inspire students with the knowledge and skills that will allow them to successfully engage within their profession.  Colin develops strong relationships with his students and profession colleagues who clearly value his personal touch, expert voice and academic guidance.

Philosophy:  Colin has a strong emphasis for the pursuit of scientific excellence and accountability in the development of laboratory-based skills.  Colin’s significant work at the University has been the champion of the practical based environment which has seen our graduates recognised for their superior professional practice skills within the competitive medical science domain.  His unique innovation of clinical case studies to reflect workplace practice has been recognised with a Division of Health Sciences Teaching Award (2010) whilst online resources have been identified by student focus groups as an exemplar for academic teaching (2018).  Colin also developed a translational teaching workshop for in-situ hybridisation techniques in conjunction with DAKO (now Agilent) in 2013, which has been successfully rolled out across the University sector in Australia.

Engagement:  Colin is a member of the Australian Institute of Medical Scientists (AIMS) and reviewer for the Australian Journal of Medical Science. Colin also served on the AIMS SA Branch Committee, including the roles of chair, vice chair and newsletter coordinator from 2002-2008.  He also is a member of the Histology Group of SA, having been a foundation member, presenter, conference organiser newsletter editor from 2000 to 2007.  He is a member of the National Society of Histotechnology (USA) and reviewer for their peer reviewed journal (Journal of Histotechnology).  Colin was recently invited to join the Biological Stains Commission (New York, USA).

Research:  Current collaborations includes the Mechanisms in Cell Biology and Disease Research Group, Cancer Research institute at UniSA as a consultant in histopathology.  Colin’s major role includes the development the immunolabelling protocols to assess novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for prostate and ovarian cancer (commercialisation in progress).  Colin has also collaborated with the Australian Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory Network and the prestigious International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (Paris) to develop criteria to assess dye quality for staining of sputum smears for tuberculosis in resource challenged countries (2002-2011).

Australian Institute of Medical Scientists

Histology Group of South Australia, Histology Group of Victoria

National Society of Histotechnology (USA)

Qualifications

• Master of Applied Science (Biomedical Science) University of South Australia

• Bachelor of Applied Science South Australian Institute of Technology