Celebrating the career and retirement of Dr. Mike Gold

By Sarah Anderson, PhD

The Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the greater UBC community celebrate the career and retirement of Dr. Michael (Mike) Gold.

Mike grew up in New York City in a family that worked hard to make ends meet. He took on many odd jobs throughout high school and college, from janitor to supermarket truck unloader and produce specialist. “I know how to clean a toilet, I’m pretty nimble with a box cutter, and I know how to section a watermelon with a machete,” he said. 

The first in his family to attend college, Mike pursued his undergraduate education at Michigan State University, joining a unique program that focused on science and society. His interest in baseball statistics and the space race evolved into a passion for math and astronomy, and he decided to major in physics. At the time, he thought biology was nothing but memorization, but his pre-med friends convinced him to take a molecular genetics course. 

Learning alongside the molecular biology revolution, Mike found himself fascinated by the ways that immune cells manipulate their genetic material in order to recognize potential pathogens. With the field of immunology on the cusp of its own explosion in new discoveries, Mike went on to pursue a PhD in immunology at the University of California, Berkeley. He studied how macrophage immune cells are activated by bacterial components, which sparked an interest in how receptors on the surface of a cell help the cell to sense and respond to environmental signals. 

Mike followed this line of inquiry to the University of California, San Francisco, where his postdoctoral research yielded critical fundamental insight into how cell surface receptor signalling in B cells triggers these immune cells to spring into action. He discovered that B cell receptor signaling stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation, a key protein modification that controls a range of cellular processes. 

For his next move, Mike followed his wife, Professor Linda Matsuuchi, a fellow scientist whom he met at UC Berkeley, to UBC. Linda joined the faculty at the Department of Zoology, and Mike worked as a research associate at the Biomedical Research Centre for two years before securing a faculty position in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

As Mike progressed as an independent investigator, he realized that it was important to advance beyond the basic biological “parts list” and elucidate the connections between each part and understand how they work together in a physiological context. Accordingly, his research took on innovative and interdisciplinary directions. His lab studied how the cytoskeleton, the complex network of proteins forming the skeleton of the cell, influences B cell activation and signalling and how the Rap GTPase enzymes work to regulate these interactions. Reconnecting with his early love for math and the physical sciences, Mike’s lab partnered with Dr. Daniel Coombs, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, and Dr. Keng Chou, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, to gain quantitative insight into B cell receptor signalling and B cell activation. Through these collaborations, Mike’s lab employed high-resolution microscopy techniques to visualize how the cytoskeleton controls B cell receptor movement and clustering within the cell membrane and to mathematically model how the spatial arrangement of the receptors impacts B cells’ immune activity. 

In another long-standing collaboration with Dr. Calvin Roskelley, a professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, Mike’s lab branched out into cancer biology to investigate the role of cytoskeleton dynamics in cell migration and cancer metastasis. Most recently, his lab’s work has focused on exploring how proteins that maintain the cytoskeleton could serve as targets for drugs aimed at stopping the growth and spread of B-cell lymphomas.  

While he had many research accomplishments, Mike says that his most important one is the student researchers he has mentored, who have gone on to use their scientific training to create positive change. He went above and beyond to create opportunities for his students to thrive, once giving up his spot at an international conference so that Madison Bolger-Munro, then a doctoral student in his lab, could present her work. “That gesture captured who Dr. Gold is as a mentor: someone who always put his trainees first and believed deeply in our potential,” she said. Mike also supported Madison, who now works in the biotechnology industry, as she participated in research sabbaticals at scientific institutions across the world. “He empowered his trainees to take ownership of their work and pursue big ideas, and I am a more creative, confident, and curious scientist because of his mentorship,” she said. 

Abhishek Bedi, a recent doctoral graduate of the Gold lab, reflected on Mike’s powerful mentorship style of caring for the student as a whole.  “Dr. Gold was the kind of mentor every trainee wishes for: approachable, understanding, and genuinely invested in our career growth. He gave us a remarkable amount of scientific freedom paired with just the right amount of guidance. He never micromanaged, but he also never let us drift into ‘hand-wavy science,’” said Bedi. “He was invested not just in our academic lives but our personal lives and was always eager to help. I remember telling my parents whenever they would worry about my well-being in Canada: ‘Don’t worry, I have Dr. Gold as my mentor.’” 

Mike was as prominent a figure in the classroom as he was in the lab, having taught every immunology course the department offered as well as a section on virology. He won UBC's Killam Teaching Prize for excellence in teaching in MICB 302, the third-year undergraduate immunology course. “I'm always interested in mechanisms, so I would ask the students, ‘How do you think this works?’ And then we would go through their hypotheses and say, ‘Well, that doesn’t align with how cells work.’ Or, ‘That’s a good idea, but that’s not how it happens, or maybe that it is how it’s done, but we just don’t know that yet,’” Mike said. “I tried to engage and connect the students. If someone had a question, I would turn to the group and say, 'Who can help our friend?' So, we started with the premise that we’re all friends here, helping each other out. And I’m kind of a shy person, but I’m a bit of a ham when I get in front of people.” The teaching evaluations for the course praised Mike's “platinum teaching” and his being a “funny dude.”

Mike also taught and overhauled the curriculum for the core graduate-level course MICB 506, shifting its focus from experimental techniques to professional development. Students now learn how to review scientific literature, write an abstract, craft an elevator pitch for their research project, and hone other written and oral science communication skills. 

Mike served as the department’s graduate program advisor for five years, where he supported students as they progressed through qualifying exams, exit seminars, and thesis defenses. This work helped to prepare him to take on the role of Department Head from 2009 to 2019. “I think it’s important to help people throughout life, and serving as Head put me in a position to help a lot of people,” Mike said. He hired 11 faculty members, ushered 15 through promotion and tenure, and championed the career development of all junior faculty by developing documents and policies that demystified the promotion and tenure process and instituting more formal faculty mentoring practices.  

With the goal of making it easier for those who came after him to balance the many demands of academia, Mike also shared his course notes, his laboratory safety licenses, and his time and expertise. “Mike Gold was a tireless mentor and advocate for everyone who was early career,” said Dr. Ninan Abraham, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Zoology. “I recall my first draft of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant that I sent him and being stunned at the sea of red ink when I got it back! Mike has a gift for distilling ideas to a core argument and he shared that in grant reviews, manuscript reviews, and exchanges on directions for research groups or the department. When he did so, it was always with a foundation of care and doing what was best. I learned so much from him." In recognition of his support for junior researchers at UBC and across Canada, the Canadian Society for Immunology established the Michael Gold Early Career Investigators Webinar Series. 

While serving as Department Head, Mike particularly enjoyed working closely with the Microbiology and Immunology Student Association (MISA) and highlighting the accomplishments of students, faculty, and staff in his ‘newsreels’ at the beginning of departmental symposia. The department collectively made great strides during his decade as Head, and Mike is especially proud of the the educational leadership faculty’s development of Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences, which earned the undergraduate program UBC’s Alfred Scow Award in 2017. Also during his tenure as Head, Mike worked with Professor Megan Levings and others to organize the first ImmunoBC conferences.

When it was time to step down as Head, Mike didn’t want a typical physical gift, but rather funding for a program to support the department’s first-generation university students. “I felt like this was an underserved group that faces unique and often unappreciated challenges. They don't have the same sort of advice from their parents or older siblings about how to navigate university or the same sort of connections. There's also often intersectionality with being an immigrant or of lower socioeconomic status,” Mike said. First-generation students might not have insider knowledge about how to gain undergraduate research experience, for example, or even the time to pursue these opportunities if they need to work to support their family. Or they may be concerned that going to office hours is a sign that they don’t understand rather than a way to get to know their professors and show that they are engaged with the material. 

Through the First-Generation University Student Mentorship Program, Mike has mentored about 15 first-generation students so far, providing academic and professional advice, connecting them with research opportunities, and putting them in touch with colleagues and alumni who can provide insight into different career paths. Mike develops a close relationship with each mentee, allowing him to write detailed and personalized letters of recommendation for their post-secondary education pursuits. The program also provides a stipend to help subsidize things like MCAT study books and exam fees.  

“Dr. Gold’s biggest impact is that he made space for people who might not have seen themselves in science,” said Nikola Deretic, a first-generation student who worked in the Gold lab as an undergraduate and is now in medical school at UBC. “He was willing to give people their first shot and then put in the work to help them succeed. I am one of many people who are in medicine or science today because he did that. And a lot of us who now mentor refugees or first-generation students are doing it because we watched him do it first.”

Farhang Ahadzadeh, a member of the first cohort of the First-Generation University Student Mentorship Program, reflected on how Mike's mentorship spilled over to students beyond those participating in the program or working in his lab. “Dr. Gold taught me that sometimes mentorship happens in the margins: hallway conversations, spontaneous check-ins, and the simple act of remembering a student's name and asking how they're doing can make people feel seen and valued and profoundly impact their sense of belonging,” he said. “Dr. Gold built a culture of community that will continue to uplift all students for years to come, making the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and UBC as a whole more equitable and inclusive places.” 

Mike says his unparalleled dedication to mentorship is natural and enjoyable for him, a product of his social justice-minded upbringing and his desire to emulate those who once guided him. “Helping others succeed has been the most rewarding part of my career and the aspect of which I am most proud,” he said. In recognition of his exceptional service to the scientific community, Dr. Gold was awarded the Canadian Society for Immunology’s Cinader Award in 2013. 

As he embarks on retirement, Mike is hardly in need of ways to fill his time. He’ll continue to serve on thesis committees (adding to the 128 he’s served on so far) and write reference letters (“It’s a lifelong commitment— I’ve always told my mentees that when you're 95 and you need a letter to get into the seniors home, I'll be writing it,” he joked.) He wants to finally read all those papers he downloaded and learn about other field he’s interested in, including Earth sciences and foreign languages. He’ll make the world tour to visit his trainees and meet up with his friends to complete his annual bicycle birthday challenge, in which he rides more kilometres than his age. 

Mike will also keep working on his handstands. “I have a personal trainer that I meet with on Zoom, and she was like, ‘Do you have any crazy goals?’ And I was like, ‘I’ve never done a handstand,’” he said. “Now I can get my feet up on the wall and then lift them off for a little while with my wife spotting me. I’ve faceplanted a few times, but that’s part of the process.”