Professor Gordon is a medical graduate of the University of Adelaide and completed postgraduate training as a General and Infectious Diseases Physician and Microbiologist at Flinders Medical Centre, the RAH and the University of Minnesota, and obtained a PhD in the field of innate immunity and bacterial pathogenesis.

He obtained an NHMRC Fellowship, worked in Newcastle and then returned to Flinders Medical Centre in 1989 as Director of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. In 1994, he worked at Washington University, St Louis, to gain expertise in molecular biology.

Professor Gordon was the Chief Examiner in Microbiology for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia from 2001-2006 and was instrumental in setting up the joint Microbiology and Infectious Diseases training program with the College of Physicians.

His clinical and laboratory interests include management of bone and joint infections, urinary infections, antibiotic use, hepatitis C, serology, molecular tests for the diagnosis of infectious diseases and molecular epidemiology.  He is the Chair of the Southern Adelaide Clinical Human Research Ethics Committee.

His research interests include quality use of pathology, structural/functional analysis of complement regulatory proteins and disease-associated polymorphisms, cellular entry of human metapneumovirus, rickettsial infections, bacterial pathogenesis and clinical studies of vaccine adjuvants.