After 37 years at Massachusetts General Hospital and 17 years as the chief of the department of Molecular Biology, Robert Kingston, PhD, is stepping into uncharted territory as Mass General’s first Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President of Research and Education.

Kingston, who started the new role January 1^st, is ready for the new challenges that the position will bring and prepared to do some learning along the way. “This is the first time in 17 years that I have new job responsibilities,” he says. “It’s been both exciting and energizing, and alternately scary.”

“I’m pleased that I’m moving into something that’s on the edge of my comfort zone at my career stage,” he adds. “I don’t like to be bored—and believe me, I’m not going to be bored in this job.”

The Chief Academic Officer is a newly created role that builds on the position of the Senior Vice President for Research to include oversight of all research and education at Mass General.

Kingston brings significant experience to the role, including three decades of research into the regulation of gene expression and the role of chromatin.

In addition to serving as chief of Molecular Biology, he had a three-year stint as chair of the Executive Committee on Research and served as co-chair of the Research Strategic Planning Committee, which helped to launch the Mass General Research Institute.

He also played a key role in launching the MGH Research Scholars program.

The vice chair of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Kingston has taught and directed molecular biology classes and served as the program lead for the HMS Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) PhD program.

Opportunities to Promote Research

In his new role, Kingston sees plenty of opportunities to promote the unique opportunities that Mass General has to advance medical care through research.

Collaborations between scientists and clinicians at all stages of the research process are helping to identify new ways to improve care and bring new strategies for diagnosis, treatment and prevention to the clinic and community.

“It used to be that the fundamental scientists—the molecular biologists such as myself—really only interacted with clinical people by saying hello to them in the halls,” he recalls.

“Now, these types of joint interactions on scientific projects are unbelievably common—it’s basically the norm and it takes place across the spectrum from fundamental to translational, clinical and outcomes research.”

“We also have opportunities in the philanthropic realm,” Kingston adds, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated a new interest in funding research. “Donors realize that research of various kinds had incredibly impact on the ability of the world to respond to COVID-19, and they are interested in supporting that.”

Reexamining Research Space

One of the first big challenges for Kingston in his new role is determining the best way to use research space coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the research enterprise at Mass General continues to grow (now surpassing $1.3B in operations), the demand for on-site research space—particularly for wet labs—has also increased.

The shift to remote and/or hybrid work that started with COVID-19 creates opportunities for altered strategies for using space for on-site research. There may also be opportunities to consolidate some programs to create a greater sense of community among those working on-site, he says.

Making changes to address space use “requires partnering with researchers to find jointly derived solutions that work,” Kingston says.

This will be a challenge because each group is different, he acknowledges. “I’m going to try to move systematically, slowly and thoughtfully on that.”

Decompressing off the Job

Kingston has several hobbies and interests to fall back on when it comes time to decompress from the challenges of his new role.

“I love to cook,” he says. “Cooking is pretty close to biochemistry, only I don’t have to follow a rigorous protocol. I can freelance as I go on, which I really enjoy.”

He’s also a wine aficionado with a wine cellar he has been curating for 30 years. “One thing I do to decompress is make a good meal while listening to music and have a couple glasses of good wine to go with it.”

He also enjoys spending time with his wife and two adult daughters, both of whom are getting married this year.

As a longtime Boston Red Sox fan, he’ll soon have two new sons-in-law who are “both wonderful human beings, but also avid Yankees fans. I’m having to rearrange my thoughts on the universe on that regard.”

A Special Place

“What makes Mass General special is the incredible depth and breadth of research taking place across the hospital,” Kingston says.

“I got to be a part of Molecular Biology for 35 years, and that is a special group of people—a wonderful set of colleagues to interact with. But there are all sorts of other wonderful groups at Mass General, so you can find the type of home that works for you.”