Leroy Hood
| Leroy Hood | |
|---|---|
Leroy Hood, in 2011.
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| Born |
October 10, 1938 Missoula, Montana |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | biotechnology, genomics |
| Institutions | Institute for Systems Biology |
| Alma mater |
Johns Hopkins University California Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Immunoglobulins: Structure, Genetics, and Evolution (1968) |
| Doctoral advisor | William J. Dreyer |
| Doctoral students | Trey Ideker |
| Notable awards |
Albert Lasker Award (1987)
Dickson Prize (1988) Kyoto Prize (2002) Lemelson–MIT Prize (2003) Heinz Award (2006) Pittcon Heritage Award (2009) Kistler Prize (2010) Russ Prize (2011) National Medal of Science (2011) IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology (2014) |
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Website www |
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 Profiles of Innovation: Lee Hood at Northeastern University
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Leroy Hood is an American biologist. He is president and co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology.
The inventions developed under his leadership include the automated DNA sequencer and an automated tool for synthesizing DNA.
Leroy Hood was born on October 10, 1938 in Missoula, Montana. As a high school student he excelled in math and science, winning the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
Hood received his undergraduate education from the California Institute of Technology, where he had teachers such as Richard Feynman and Linus Pauling. Hood received an M.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1964 and a Ph.D. from Caltech in 1968, where he returned to be a faculty member for 22 years.
Dr Hood and his colleagues at Caltech created the technological foundation for the sciences of genomics (study of genomes) and proteomics (study of proteins) by fostering the development of five groundbreaking instruments (the protein sequencer, the protein synthesizer, the DNA synthesizer, the automated DNA sequencer and (later) the ink-jet DNA synthesizer) and by elucidating the potentialities of genome and proteome research into the future through his pioneering of the fields of systems biology and systems medicine. Hood's instruments not only helped pioneer the deciphering of biological information, but also introduced the concept of high throughput data accumulation through automation and parallelization of protein and DNA chemistries.
The protein sequencer and automated peptide synthesizer helped create the field of proteomics. The protein sequencer allowed scientists to determine partial amino acid sequences of proteins that had not previously been accessible, resulting in the characterization of a series of new proteins whose genes could then be cloned and analyzed. These discoveries led to significant ramifications for biology, medicine, and pharmacology. The automated peptide synthesizer allowed for the synthetic synthesis of peptides and small proteins in sufficient quantities to begin characterizing their functions.
Revolutionizing the field of molecular biology, the DNA synthesizer developed by Marv Caruthers allowed biologist to synthesize DNA fragments for cloning and other genetic manipulations, The DNA synthesizer played a critical role in the identification of many important genes and in the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the critical technique that allow any segment of DNA to be amplified a million-fold. The most notable of Hood's inventions, the automated DNA sequencer developed in 1986 in collaboration with Applied Biosystems, made possible high-speed sequencing of human genomes and was the key technology enabling the Human Genome Project.
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Wikipedia