[4][5] Gull was educated at Eston Grammar School and King's College London where he was awarded a first class Bachelor of Science degree in 1969 followed by a PhD in 1973.
He held a personal chair at Kent when he moved to the University of Manchester where he spent the 1990s involved with the development of the School of Biological Sciences as Head of Biochemistry and Research Dean.
[18] In 2010, Gull attracted criticism by his students and the national press for the decision to spend £15,000 on a college snowdrop garden amid budget cuts.
His certificate of election to the Royal Society reads: Distinguished for his contributions to our understanding of the cell and molecular biology of eukaryotic microbes, especially fungi, slime moulds and trypanosomes.
His novel approaches have led to discovery of unusual mechanisms of microtubule initiation and the partitioning of genomes in sleeping sickness trypanosomes, also of the relationship of division to differentiation in these parasites.