The Institute of Biology (IoB) was a professional body for biologists, primarily those working in the United Kingdom. The Institute was founded in 1950 by the Biological Council: the then umbrella body for Britain's many learned biological societies. Its individual membership (as opposed to the individual membership of its affiliates) quickly grew; in the late 1990s it was as high as 16,000 but declined in the early 21st century to 11,000. It received a Royal Charter in 1979 and it held charitable status. The headquarters of the Institute was originally located in Tavistock Square before moving to larger rented accommodation in Queensgate in Kensington, London, near to the Natural History Museum and Imperial College London. It then bought its own property nearby. During the early 1990s it bought the building next door, merging the two. In 2006, it moved to smaller accommodation in Red Lion Court (near the Royal Courts of Justice). The IoB was not a trade union, nor did it have the regulatory power over its membership (like the General Medical Council though it did have the right to remove a member's Chartered status and was empowered by its Royal Charter to represent Britain's profession of biology. During October 2009, the IoB was merged with the Biosciences Federation (BSF) to form the Society of Biology (which through its member organizations can be said to represent some 80,000 life scientists).^[1]

Role of the Institute[link]

As the professional body representing biologists, the IoB was frequently consulted on biological issues by Government, Parliament, industry and other organisations. Due to its widespread members and affiliated societies, it prided itself on producing a balanced response that reflected the views of the biological profession as a whole. At its peak of policy activity in the late 1990s the Institute was each year responding to over 40 consultations and organising half a dozen policy events and workshops in addition to its usual committee meetings. Topics addressed were wide and varied, for example including relating to: agricultural research, AIDS, antibiotic resistance, alternative medicine regulation, bioethics, biodiversity, biotechnology, careers in biology (both for school leavers and at the research level), climate change, GMOs, public understanding of science, national park formation, renewable energy impact, research assessment, safety in biological fieldwork, safety in laboratories, xenotransplantation... among many others.

The Institute's house journal was Biologist that featured news and book reviews but mainly overview articles of biological topics. It also produced a specialist journal for biology teachers and university lecturers called the "Journal of Biological Education". (Both journals continue today with the Society of Biology.) In addition to journals it has produced symposium proceedings and a range of in-house publications. In the Institute's 50-year history its most popular in-house publication was "Careers with Biology" that ran to several editions and tens of thousands of copies. Other highly successful titles have included "Safety in Biological Fieldwork" (three editions) and "Biological Nomenclature" (four editions). From its second decade through to the end its fourth, the Institute was noted for its co-publishing ventures with commercial academic publishers. In particular its short book series 'Studies in Biology' with Edward Arnold beginning in 1960 ended up at the height of its popularity with 149 titles. This series is now with Cambridge University Press. Over the years literally hundreds of thousands of copies from this series have been sold. Other successful publishing ventures in the 1980s and 1990s included those with Unwin Hyman, Chapman & Hall, and Westlake Publishing. In the late 1990s through to 2003 its joint publishing ventures with Hobsons saw bioscience university course guides go each year to every secondary school in the UK.

The Institute regularly organised scientific symposia. These were organised by either its regional branches or by its scientific committees ('divisions') that related to biomedicine, education, agriculture and environment (these last two were merged in 2007). Prior to 2000, these provided the raw material for the aforementioned 'proceedings'. The regional branches also regularly organised other scientific as well as social events.

During 2003, the IoB joined the Biosciences Federation (BSF) re-inventing "a single authority within the life sciences that decision-makers are able to consult for opinion and information to assist the formulation of public policy".^[2] The IoB participated in the formation of policy responses and statements with the BSF. For example, the IoB "contributed specific (or specialist) advice" in the formation of the policy statement Climate Change: Looking forward, in which the BSF states its agreement "that climate change is 'the world's greatest environmental challenge'." Additionally, the IoB also communicated policy advice independently of the BSF. For example, in regards to ecosystem services, they promoted, "putting an explicit value on the services that ecosystems contribute to human welfare, including such diverse items as flood protection, pollination, soil formation and aesthetic enjoyment."^[3]

Membership of the Institute[link]

Members agreed to uphold standards of professional behaviour contained in the Royal Charter:

"Every member of the Institute shall at all times so order their conduct as to uphold the dignity and reputation of biology and to safeguard the public interest in matters of safety and health and otherwise. They shall exercise professional skill and judgement to the best of their ability and discharge professional responsibilities with integrity."

The IoB offered members a number of benefits, including subscriptions to in-house journals, Journal of Biological Education and The Biologist, its publications, discounts on third party products and services and also discounted use of the meeting facilities at the IoB headquarters in London.

There were several grades of membership, depending upon biological qualifications and experience. Members and Fellows were awarded Chartered Biologist (CBiol) status, the professional qualification for bioscientists. It demonstrated a high level of attainment in biological experience, personal integrity, professional attributes and academic qualifications. In addition to the grades listed below, there were also student and associate membership grades.

Membership[link]

The Member grade was the main professional grade. Members were professional bioscientists with a standard of academic attainment equivalent to first or second class honours degree level in biological science and with post-graduate responsible experience in biological research or in the teaching or application of biological science. Members were entitled to use the letters C. Biol M.I.Biol

Fellowship[link]

Fellowship of the Institute of Biologists was the senior professional grade. Bioscientists who have achieved distinction in biological research or the teaching or application of biological science were eligible. Fellows used the designation C.Biol F.I.Biol

Affiliated societies[link]

The Institute was born out of the Biological Council. The Biological Council dissolved in the early 1990s and became the Affiliated Societies: this affiliation enabled the Institute to facilitate what its then President called "the voice of British biology". At their most there were 70 societies in 2002. This biological affiliation enabled issues of common concern (such as research assessment, science funding, career structure, bioethics) to be addressed as well as more specialist issues that affected only a subset of the affiliation.

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Society of Biology homepage

Sydney Brenner
E. Lederberg, G. Stent, S. Brenner, J. Lederberg, 1965
Born	(1927-01-13) 13 January 1927 (age 85) Germiston, Gauteng, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Fields	Biology
Institutions	University of Witwatersrand University of California, Berkeley Molecular Sciences Institute King's College, Cambridge
Alma mater	University of Witwatersrand University of Oxford University of California, Berkeley Postdoctoral fellow [1]
Known for	Caenorhabditis elegans[2], Apoptosis
Notable awards	Harvey Prize (1987) Copley Medal (1991) King Faisal International Prize in Medicine (1992) Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine (2002)

Sydney Brenner, CH FRS (born 13 January 1927) is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston.

Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology.

He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology,^[2] and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, U.S..

Biography[link]

Brenner was born in the small town of Germiston, South Africa. His parents were Jewish immigrants. His father came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, and his mother, from Riga, Latvia, in 1922.^[3] Educated at Germiston High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, he went on to complete a D.Phil. from Exeter College, Oxford.

Family[link]

He was married to Dr. May Brenner (née Covitz, subsequently Balkind) from December 1952 until her death in January 2010; their children include Belinda, Carla, Stefan, and his stepson Jonathan Balkind from his wife's first marriage. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Career[link]

Together with Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, he was one of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Francis Crick and James Watson; at the time he and the other scientists were working at Oxford University's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology.^[4]

Brenner made several seminal contributions to the emerging field of molecular biology in the 1960s. The first was proving that all overlapping genetic coding sequences were impossible. This insight separated the coding function from structural constraints as proposed in a clever code by George Gamov. This led Francis Crick to propose the concept of the adaptor or as it is now known "transfer RNA (tRNA)". The physical separation between the anticodon and the amino acid on a tRNA is the basis for the unidirectional flow of information in coded biological systems. This is commonly known as the central dogma of molecular biology i.e. that information flows from nucleic acid to protein and never from protein to nucleic acid. Following this adaptor insight, Brenner proposed the concept of a messenger RNA, based on correctly interpreting the work of Elliot "Ken" Volkin and Larry Astrachan [Volkin, E. & Astrachan, L. Phosphorus incorporation in Escherichia coli ribonucleic acid after infection with bacteriophage T2. Virol. 2, 149-161 (1956)]. Then, with Francis Crick, Leslie Barnett and Richard J. Watts-Tobin, Brenner genetically demonstrated the triplet nature of the code of protein translation through the Crick, Brenner, Barnett, Watts-Tobin et al. experiment of 1961, which discovered frameshift mutations. This insight provided early elucidation of the nature of the genetic code. Leslie Barnett also helped set up Sydney Brenner's laboratory in Singapore, many years later.

Brenner, with George Pieczenik, created the first computer matrix analysis of nucleic acids using TRAC, which Brenner continues to use. Crick, Brenner, Klug and Pieczenik returned to their early work on deciphering the genetic code with a pioneering paper on the origin of protein synthesis, where constraints on mRNA and tRNA co-evolved allowing for a five-base interaction with a flip of the anticodon loop, and thereby creating a triplet code translating system without requiring a ribosome. This model requires a partially overlapping code. This is the only published paper in scientific history with three independent Nobel laureates collaborating as authors.

Brenner then focused on establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of animal development including neural development. Brenner chose this 1 millimeter-long soil roundworm mainly because it is simple, is easy to grow in bulk populations, and turned out to be quite convenient for genetic analysis. For this work, he shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston. The title of his Nobel lecture on December 2002, "Nature's Gift to Science," is a homage to this modest nematode; in it, he considered that having chosen the right organism turned out to be as important as having addressed the right problems to work on.^[5] In 2002, he won the Dan David Prize (that was directed by Professor Gad Barzilai) and the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. In recognition of his pioneering role in starting what is now a global research community that work on C. elegans, another closely related nematode was given the scientific name Caenorhabditis brenneri.^[6]

Brenner founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California in 1996.^[7] He is currently associated with the Salk Institute, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the Singapore Biomedical Research Council, the Janelia Farm Research Campus, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In August 2005, Brenner was appointed president of the Okinawa Insitute of Science and Technology. He is also on the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute. A scientific biography of Brenner was written by Errol Friedberg in the US, for publication by CSHL Press in October 2010: a companion biography to that of Francis Crick by Robert Olby published in August 2009.

Known for his penetrating scientific insight and acerbic wit, Brenner, for many years, penned a regular column ("Loose Ends") in the journal Current Biology. This column was so popular that "Loose ends from Current Biology", a compilation, was published in 1997 by Current Biology Ltd.,(ISBN 1 85922 325 7) and is now a collectors' item. Brenner wrote "A Life In Science" (ISBN 0-9540278-0-9) paperback published by Biomed Central Ltd. in 2001. Brenner is also noted for his generosity of ideas and the great number of students and colleagues his ideas have stimulated.

Brenner was awarded the National Science and Technology Medal by A*STAR, Singapore on 11 October 2006 for his distinguished and strategic contributions to the development of Singapore’s scientific capability and culture, particularly in the biomedical sciences sector.^[8]

"American plan" and "European plan"[link]

The "American plan" and "European Plan" were proposed by Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions.

According to the European plan (sometimes referred to as the British plan), the function of cells is determined by its genetic lineage. Therefore, a mother cell with a specific function (for instance, interpreting visual information) would create daughter cells with similar functions.

According to the American plan, a brain cell's function is determined by the function of its neighbors after cell migration. If a cell migrates to an area in the visual cortex, the cell will adopt the function of its neighboring visual cortex cells, guided by chemical and axonal signals from these cells. If the same cell migrates to the auditory cortex, it would develop functions related to hearing, regardless of its genetic lineage.

See also[link]

• Apoptosis and History and highlights in apoptosis research.
• History of RNA biology
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of RNA biologists

References[link]

• The Science Times Book of the Brain 1998. Edited by Nicholas Wade. The Lyons Press
• Judson, H. F. The Eighth Day of Creation (1979), p. 10–11

Books[link]

Books by Sydney Brenner[link]

• "Loose Ends" : Collection of Loose Ends/False Starts columns by 'Uncle Syd.' from January 1994 to December 2000 (Current Biology, 1997) ISBN 18592232571/1-85922-325-7
• 'My Life in Science', with Lewis Wolpert, edited by Errol C. Friedberg and Eleanor Lawrence, BioMed Central 2001, 199pp ISBN 0-9540278-0-9

Books about Sydney Brenner[link]

• "Sydney Brenner: A Biography" by Errol Friedberg, pub. CSHL Press October 2010, ISBN 0-87969-947-7.

Books referring to Sydney Brenner[link]

• Soraya De Chadarevian; Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II, CUP 2002, 444 pp; ISBN 0-521-57078-6
• Francis Crick; What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (Basic Books reprint edition, 1990) ISBN 0-465-09138-5
• Georgina Ferry; 'Max Perutz and the Secret of Life', (Chatto & Windus 2007) 352pp, ISBN 978-0-7011-7695-2. For uncaptioned picture.
• John Finch; 'A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor', Medical Research Council 2008, 381 pp, ISBN 978-1-84046-940-0; this book is all about the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.
• Horace Freeland Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation. Makers of the Revolution in Biology; Penguin Books 1995, first published by Jonathan Cape, 1977; ISBN 0-14-017800-7.
• Robert Olby; "Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press,ISBN 978-0-87969-798-3, published on 25 August 2009.
• Max Perutz; 'What a Time I am Having: Selected Letters..', CSHL Press 2008, 506pp ISBN 978087969645. For captioned picture.
• Matt Ridley; Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives) first published in June 2006 in the US and then in the UK September 2006, by HarperCollins Publishers; 192 pp, ISBN 0-06-082333-X; in paperback, by Atlas Books (with index), ISBN 978-0-00-721331-3.
• Lewis Wolpert; How We Live and Why We Die, Faber and Faber 2009, 240 pp; ISBN 978-0-571-23912-2

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sydney Brenner

• Sydney Brenner video at Web of Stories
• Dan David Prize laureate 2002
• 2002 Nobel Prize
• Sydney Brenner
• Sydney Brenner interviewed by Alan Macfarlane, 23 August 2007 (film)
• "What Genomes Can Tell Us About the Past" online talk by Sydney Brenner

Susumu Tonegawa (利根川 進 Tonegawa Susumu, born September 6, 1939) is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity.^[1] Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training. In his later years, he has turned his attention to the molecular and cellular basis of memory formation.

Tonegawa is best known for figuring out the genetic mechanism of the adaptive immune system. One early idea was that each gene produces one protein. There are under 30,000 genes in the human body. However, the human body can produce millions of antibodies. Tonegawa showed in experiments beginning in 1976, genetic material rearranges itself to form millions of antibodies. Comparing the DNA of B cells (a type of white blood cell) in embryonic and adult mice, he observed that genes in the mature B cells of the adult mice are moved around, recombined, and deleted to form the diversity of the variable region of antibodies.^{[citation needed]}

Tonegawa was born in Nagoya, Japan and attended the Hibiya High School in Tokyo.^[2] He received his bachelor's degree from Kyoto University in 1963. He received his doctorate from the University of California, San Diego where he worked with Dr Masaki Hayashi. He did post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute in San Diego in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco, then worked at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Basel, Switzerland, where he performed his landmark immunology experiments. In 1981, he became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founded and directed what is now called the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. In 1982, he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Barbara McClintock, another Nobel Prize winner in 1983. He is a member of the Scientific Board of Governors at The Scripps Research Institute. He is currently the director of the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at MIT. While he heads a full research laboratory at MIT, as of April 1, 2009, he serves as the director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) in Wako-shi, Japan.

His son Satto committed suicide in his dorm room on October 24, 2011 while attending MIT.^[3][4][5]

Recently a research report published by his group showed that the activation of a specific sub-population of neurons, labeled during fear conditioning paradigm, is sufficient to evoke a behavioural response correlated with a precise memory trace. This shows for the first time that the activation of a specific engram recalls memory itself. ^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Faculty Webpage at MIT Biology
• Description of research at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• [1]
• http://picower.mit.edu/Faculty/Principal%20Investigators/susumu-tonegawa

Ronald Evans, Jr.
NASA Astronaut
Nationality	American
Status	Deceased
Born	(1933-11-10)November 10, 1933 St. Francis, Kansas
Died	April 7, 1990(1990-04-07) (aged 56) Scottsdale, Arizona
Other occupation	Engineer
Rank	Captain, USN
Time in space	12d 13h 52m
Selection	1966 NASA Group
Total EVAs	1
Total EVA time	1 hour 5 minutes
Missions	Apollo 17
Mission insignia

Ronald Ellwin Evans, Jr. (November 10, 1933 – April 7, 1990) was a NASA astronaut and one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. He also served as a Captain in the United States Navy.

Evans was selected as an astronaut by NASA as part of Astronaut Group 5 in 1966 and made his first and only flight into space as command module pilot aboard Apollo 17 in 1972, the last manned mission to the Moon to date, with Commander Eugene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt. During the flight, he orbited the Moon as his two crew mates descended to the surface. In 1975, Evans served as backup command module pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Evans was born on November 10, 1933 in St. Francis, Kansas. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. He graduated from Highland Park High School in Topeka, Kansas, received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas in 1956 and a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1964. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi, Society of Sigma Xi, and Sigma Nu.

Military career[link]

In June 1957, he completed flight training after receiving his commission as an Ensign through the Navy ROTC Program at the University of Kansas. When notified of his selection to the astronaut program, Evans was on sea duty in the Pacific, assigned to VF-51 and flying F-8 Crusader aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga during a period of seven months in Vietnam War combat operations. The total flight time accrued during his career was 5,100 hours, including 4,600 hours in jet aircraft.

Evans during his trans-Earth EVA on Apollo 17

NASA career[link]

Evans was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He served as a member of the astronaut support crews for the Apollo 7 and Apollo 11 flights, and as backup command module pilot for Apollo 14.

Evans' first and only space flight was as command module pilot of Apollo 17, the last scheduled US manned mission to the Moon. He was accompanied by Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. While Cernan and Schmitt landed and worked on the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, Evans remained in lunar orbit onboard the command module America, completing assigned work tasks which required visual geological observations, hand-held photography of specific targets, and the control of cameras and other highly sophisticated scientific equipment carried in the service module's SIM bay.

On the way back to Earth, Evans completed a one-hour, six-minute extravehicular activity, successfully retrieving three camera cassettes and completing a personal inspection of the equipment bay area. He logged 301 hours, 51 minutes in space; 1 hour, 6 minutes of which were spent in extravehicular activity. He holds the record of more time spent in lunar orbit: six days and four hours (148 hours).

Evans was later backup command module pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission.

Evans retired from the US Navy on April 30, 1976, with 21 years of service, and remained active as a NASA astronaut involved in the development of NASA's Space Shuttle Program. He served as a member of the operations and training group, within the astronaut office, responsible for launch and ascent phases of the Shuttle flight program.

Later years[link]

Evans retired from NASA in 1977 to pursue a career in the coal industry. He died of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona on April 7, 1990 and was survived by his widow Jan and two children.^[1]

Honors[link]

Evans was presented with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1973, the Johnson Space Center Superior Achievement Award in 1970, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal in 1973, Navy Astronaut wings, eight Air Medals, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal with combat distinguishing service in 1966. He received a University of Kansas Distinguished Service Citation in 1973, and was named Kansan of the Year in 1972.

References[link]

External links[link]

• NASA Biography
• Spacefacts biography of Ronald Evans
• National Space Society: Ad Astra magazine

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2011)

Leroy Hood
Hood at a book signing in May 2011
Born	(1938-10-10) October 10, 1938 (age 73) Missoula, Montana
Citizenship	American
Fields	biotechnology, genomics
Institutions	Institute for Systems Biology
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University, California Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	William J. Dreyer
Doctoral students	Trey Ideker
Notable awards	Albert Lasker Award (1987), Kyoto Prize (2002), Lemelson–MIT Prize (2003), Heinz Award (2006), Kistler Prize (2010) Russ Prize (2011)

Leroy Hood is an American biologist. He won the 2011 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize “for automating DNA sequencing that revolutionized biomedicine and forensic science” and the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize for inventing "four instruments that have unlocked much of the mystery of human biology" by helping decode the genome.^[1] Hood also won the 2002 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology, and the 1987 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. His inventions include the automated DNA sequencer and an automated tool for synthesizing DNA. Hood co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology.

Biography[link]

Dr. Leroy Hood was born October 10, 1938 in Missoula, Montana. He is recognized as one of the world's leading scientists in molecular biotechnology and genomics. He holds numerous patents and awards for his scientific breakthroughs and prides himself on his life-long commitment to making science accessible and understandable to the general public, especially children. One of this foremost goals is bringing hands-on, inquiry-based science to K-12 classrooms.

Hood was also a founding member of Amgen.

Dr. Hood earned an M.D. From Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1968, supervised by William J. Dreyer. Since then, his research has focused on the study of molecular immunology and biotechnology. Dr. Hood has published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers, received 14 patents, and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. Hood received a D.Sc. from Bates College in 1999.

His professional career began at Caltech where he and his colleagues pioneered four instruments--the automated DNA sequencer and synthesizer, and the protein synthesizer and sequencer--which comprise the technological foundation for contemporary molecular biology. In particular, the DNA sequencer has revolutionized genomics by allowing the rapid automated sequencing of DNA. Dr. Hood was also one of the first advocates of and is a key player in the Human Genome Project--the quest to decipher the sequence of the human DNA. He also played a pioneering role in deciphering the secrets of antibody diversity.

In 1992, Dr. Hood moved to the University of Washington to create the cross-disciplinary Department of Molecular Biotechnology. In his role as the Professor of Biomedical Science, Dr. Hood applied his laboratory expertise in DNA sequencing to the analysis of human and mouse immune receptors and initiated studies in prostate cancer, autoimmunity, and hematopoietic stem cell development.

In 2000, Dr. Hood co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington to pioneer systems approaches to biology and medicine. He serves as President of the Institute and continues to pursue his interest in biology, medicine, technology, development, and computational biology.

Dr. Hood has played a role in founding numerous biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin, Rosetta, and MacroGenics.

Dr. Hood was awarded the 1987 Lasker Prize for his studies on the mechanism of immune diversity; the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Award for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies in 2000; the 2002 Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for technology development; the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Innovation and Invention for the development of the DNA sequencer; the 12th Annual Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment^[2] in 2006 for his extraordinary breakthroughs in biomedical science; and the 2006 Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for his society-transforming use of information technology. In 2007 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

References[link]

External links[link]

• My Life and Adventures Integrating Biology and Technology Commemorative lecture given when awarded the 2002 Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technologies.
• Biography of Leroy Hood at the website of the Institute for Systems Biology.
• Interview with Leroy Hood on the website of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
• The Heinz Awards, Leroy Hood profile
• SystemsX.ch - The Swiss Initiative in Systems Biology