Rate My Professor Colin Gordon

Colin Gordon is a Lecturer in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, College of Health, at Adelaide University. He leads the histopathology stream within the Bachelor of Laboratory Medicine (Honours), coordinating senior courses including Histopathology and Cytopathology (MDST4002) and Histotechnology (MDST3004), and directing the teaching and research laboratories. As Program Director for the Graduate Certificate of Surgical Pathology Preparation, he supports professional upskilling for medical scientists to meet National Pathology Accreditation Advisory Council standards. Renowned for his engaging teaching across platforms, Gordon emphasizes practical laboratory skills, scientific excellence, and workplace accountability. His innovations, such as clinical case studies and online resources, earned the Division of Health Sciences Teaching Award (2010), and he developed a national translational workshop on in-situ hybridisation techniques with DAKO (Agilent) in 2013.

Gordon graduated from the South Australian Institute of Technology (now UniSA) in 1985 and completed a Master's Degree in Biomedical Science at UniSA in 2005, researching small bowel development during weaning with The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Gastroenterology Department, honing expertise in immunolabelling. His career includes multidisciplinary scientist roles at Flinders Medical Centre, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science (Adelaide and Port Lincoln), followed by recruitment to SAIT/UniSA for medical laboratory science teaching, specializing in histopathology. Current consultancy supports the Mechanisms in Cell Biology and Disease Research Group at UniSA's Cancer Research Institute, developing immunolabelling for prostate and ovarian cancer biomarkers (commercialization pending). Research focuses on immunohistochemistry methodology/applications and dye standardization for tuberculosis sputum smears in developing countries, collaborating with Australian Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory Network and International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (2002-2011). Key publications: Martini, C. et al. (2023), 'Aberrant protein expression of Appl1, Sortilin and Syndecan-1 during the biological progression of prostate cancer', Pathology 55(1):40-51; Gordon, C. et al. (2009), 'Evaluating the performance of basic fuchsin for the Ziehl-Neelsen stain', International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 13(1):130-135; Neoh, S.H. et al. (1986), 'The purification of mouse monoclonal antibodies from ascitic fluid', Journal of Immunological Methods 91(2):231-235. Gordon chaired AIMS SA Branch (2002-2008), led Histology Group of SA (2000-2007), reviews for Australian Journal of Medical Science and Journal of Histotechnology, and joined Biological Stains Commission (USA).