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Washington BioHistory...The Hood Effect


Leroy Hood Leroy Hood, President & Co-Founder, Institute for Systems Biology; Former Gates Professor and Chairman, Molecular Biotechnology; Professor, Immunology and Bioengineering; M.D., Johns Hopkins 1964; Ph.D., Biochemistry, California Institute of Technology, 1968. (Photo: Leroy Hood, courtesy Institute for Systems Biology)

The economic and scientific benefits that come from presence of leading research scientists in an area can not be overstated. Washington State, in particular, is fortunate to have a number of such individuals conducting research at its universities, non-profit research organizations and in private companies.

The recruitment of Leroy Hood from Caltech to the University of Washington (UW) has had, and will continue to have an enormous impact on the development of the life science industry in the state of Washington, and elsewhere. In October 1991, Dr. Hood, best known for his work developing automatic gene sequencing machines, was appointed Chair of the newly created UW's Department of Molecular Biotechnology. The new Department was created with a focus on studying complex biological systems and networks.

Notably, the recruitment of Hood would not have been possible were it not for a $12 million gift to the UW from Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates used to create the new department within the UW's medical school.

  • The Microsoft Effect

Dr. Hood's presence in the Seattle area has not only recruited a number of leading scientific researchers to the UW, such as Maynerd Olson, Mary-Claire King, Ruedi Aebersold and others, but he has been involved in the founding of several Seattle area life science companies.

  • Darwin Molecular Corporation, established in 1992, and acquired by Chiroscience R&D/Celltech in 1996 for $120 million in stock, was focused on the discovery and development of small molecule drugs and related diagnostics with a therapeutic focus on immune and inflammatory disease. In addition to Allen and Gates, other prominent individuals involved in company's founding included Ronald Cape, founder of Cetus Corporation, David Galas, former head of the Human Genome Project, and the late George Rathmann, former Chairman of ICOS Corporation and Chairman Emeritus of Amgen, Inc.
  • Rosetta Inpharmatics Rosetta Inpharmatics was established in 1996 as a bioinformatics company working to transform the drug discovery process through its integrated system of informatics tools, biological platforms, and data sets derived from microarray technologies. Co-founders of Rosetta include Lee Hood, Leland Hartwell, President and Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Steven Friend, former Director of Molecular Pharmacology, at the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The company was acquired by Merck by Merck in 2001 for $620 million, and was closed by Merck in 2008.
  • Institute for Systems Biology Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) -- The ISB founded in 2000 by Alan Aderem, Ruedi Aebersold, and Leroy Hood, is an internationally renowned non-profit research institute dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. ISB's goal is to unravel the mysteries of human biology to identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, arthritis and AIDS.
  • PhenoGenomics Corp., founded by Hood is collaborating with Taiwan Genome Sciences on research concerning the genes responsible for liver and gastric cancers. Hood is also the chief scientific officer of Taiwan Genome.

In addition to the economic/industry impact, Dr. Hood has help develop a number of innovative Outreach Education programs that bring leading-edge science to teachers and students in K-12 schools in the state. These programs provide interdisciplinary, hands-on science curricula, teacher training, equipment and support to promote systemic change in schools.


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