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Dr Bridget Ogilvie recounts highlights of her career.

The NIMR was under the leadership of Sir Peter Medawar when I went there in 1963: the Division of Immunology in particular was internationally renowned, and Sir Peter, a zoologist by training, found parasites interesting and decided to build up the Division of Parasitology, where I worked. He and his successor, Sir Arnold Burgen, always gave me strong support. Encouraged by my successful venture into veterinary nematode parasites in Australia, I decided to embark on the study of human parasitic nematodes, hookworm (Necator americanus) and lymphatic filaria (Brugia spp.) and this was the area of my work until I ceased to be a bench scientist. By then, I was sufficiently well established as a scientist to be allowed to have a small group of people working with me. Our efforts were mainly focused on the immunogenicity of the secretions and surface coat of the parasites, and we demonstrated a remarkable degree of variation, especially in the latter, as the worms pass through the different stages of their complex life cycles.

By chance in 1978, just when for a number of reasons I felt it would be good to have another sabbatical year, I met Dr P O Williams, the Director of the Wellcome Trust, at a meeting on human hookworm at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como. He realised I was restless and suggested I spend a sabbatical year running the tropical medicine research portfolio at the Wellcome Trust on a half-time basis (ie, while still running my research group at NIMR). He knew from experience that it was not easy to recruit enthusiastic bench scientists to work for a funding agency.

The Trust has continued to use his idea of offering such people a one- or two-year secondment to work at the Wellcome Trust in charge of one of its funding programs. It allows senior scientists to see if they enjoy the very different life of an officer of a funding agency without permanently cutting their connection to their university department. Senior university people often find the change to a more managerial culture difficult, and this arrangement has allowed people to return to their university post without damage to them or either organisation.

It is very important that funding agencies have staff with real experience of research at an internationally recognised level to run their programs. Staff must have credibility with grant holders, understand their difficulties and pressures and be sympathetic to grant holders and those who do not succeed in the increasingly fierce competition for funds. The most successful officers of funding agencies have flair and the ability to make things happen. In funding terms mainstream science can perhaps take care of itself, but when a funding agency decides to try new ways of funding or sets out to build up a field that is either new or neglected able, creative staff are absolutely essential.

Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed working at the Wellcome Trust. It was relatively small when I first joined in 1979, with an annual grant expenditure of about £10 million and a staff of about 25. My laboratory at NIMR was going through a very productive phase, so I was extremely busy looking after my laboratory in the morning and working for the Trust in the afternoon. I finally decided to change direction and joined the staff of the Wellcome Trust full time in January 1981.

By that time, the days of easy money for research had come to an end, although access to funds has become far more difficult over the succeeding two decades. While the key to good grant making will always be the identification of scientists with good ideas, as funding choices have become more difficult so thoughtful policy direction has increased in importance. I have had a most interesting and rewarding time at the Wellcome Trust because, while other sources of research funds have hit a ceiling, the resources of the Wellcome Trust have grown and, in the past decade, grown very rapidly.

I joined the staff of the Trust because of its focus on individuals and its commitment to career development, and this remained my chief concern throughout my time there. As Director, with the Trust becoming so large, I tried to ensure that it remained an approachable, listening and adaptable organisation that was not secretive in the operation of its funding activities. I am pleased that the Trust seized the opportunity to set up the Sanger Centre, which has become such a key organisation internationally in the support of human and pathogen genomic analysis. I am glad the Trust is funding studies of the changes in the human population, which I regard as the key issue today in fulfilling the founder's instruction to study conditions affecting "the physical conditions of mankind". I am also delighted that the Trust is involved very actively in improving public understanding of science and its social and ethical implications.

I am now engaged in a portfolio of activities -- on the board of two large public companies; a Trustee of the Science Museum and the National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts; a member of the National Council of Science and Technology; chairman of the governing body of the Institute of Animal Health; and chairman of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science. In all these activities, my aim is to keep myself up to date and in contact with science and to focus, where possible, on helping scientists to communicate their work and their enthusiasm to others so that non-scientists might become less fearful of scientific advance.