Hood Trailblazer of the Genomics Age (Audible Audio Edition) Luke Timmerman David Baltimore Xe Sands Pear Press Books
Download As PDF : Hood Trailblazer of the Genomics Age (Audible Audio Edition) Luke Timmerman David Baltimore Xe Sands Pear Press Books
Lee Hood did that rarest of things. He enabled scientists to see things they couldn't see before and do things they hadn't dreamed of doing. Scientists can now sequence complete human genomes in a day, setting in motion a revolution that is personalizing medicine.
Hood, a son of the American West, was an unlikely candidate to transform biology. But with ferocious drive, he led a team at Caltech that developed the automated DNA sequencer, the tool that paved the way for the Human Genome Project. He captivated scientists with his almost religious fervor for the new biology enabled by the machines. Hood's brilliance, rebellion, enthusiasm, and ego earned him detractors as well as admirers. His management style, once described as "creative anarchy", alienated many. Some of his collaborators seethed, claiming he took too much credit. Fellow Caltech biologists charged that his empire building was out of control and ousted him as their chairman. A fraud in his lab made him consider, for a moment, quitting science.
Wooed by money from Bill Gates, Hood started over at the University of Washington, creating the world's first Department of Molecular Biotechnology. Seven years later, his impatience for rules drove him to depart. He left at age 61 to start his own Institute for Systems Biology. Would he finally achieve the ultimate application of the genome project - personalized medicine?
In Hood Trailblazer of the Genomics Age, journalist Luke Timmerman zeroes in on a charismatic, controversial personality. Never-before-reported details are drawn from the scientist's confidential files, public records, and more than 150 interviews with Hood and his family, friends, collaborators, and detractors. The result is not just a revealing portrait of one of the most influential biologists of our time but a deeply human look at science itself.
Hood Trailblazer of the Genomics Age (Audible Audio Edition) Luke Timmerman David Baltimore Xe Sands Pear Press Books
When the author, who for full disclosure I've known for years and consider a friend, told me he was writing a biography I was skeptical it would teach anyone much about the business of biotechnology -- even with such a compelling subject as Dr. Leroy Hood. I was wrong.The first two-thirds of the book are spectacular. As a non-scientist who has worked in the biotech industry for nearly two decades now, the story of all the technologies our industry takes for granted -- technologies without which modern biotechnology research and development would be impossible -- was gripping and informative, providing great insights. Mr. Timmerman has an unusually great talent for making hard science accessible to the non-scientist, making all of the key portions of the book accessible to anyone.
The last third of the book, and in some ways a consistent underlying theme of Dr. Hood's story, is perhaps less easy to appreciate for people who have not been involved in this business. Understanding biology is orders of magnitude more difficult than anyone expects. Failure is the rule, not the exception. Getting off track, and spending astonishing amounts of time and money on the wrong track, is something everyone in our industry does. Those considered 'geniuses' in our industry simply do it slightly less often -- or at least less publicly -- than their peers. And too often, our industry is just too early and we get caught in the quintessential vicious cycle of being on the bleeding edge of science -- we don't have the tools to prove our theories, society hasn't caught up to be where they need to be to embrace our theories, and (as a consequence) the money isn't there for the resources to prove us right. In the author's hands, Dr. Hood's career is an example of this vicious circle and his genius, and Dr. Hood is legitimately a genius despite whatever his detractors might say, was navigating his way out of that vicious circle quicker than nearly anyone.
As the guy in charge of operations for the venture fund I work for and (initially at least) operations at our startups, I winced at Dr. Hood's cavalier attitudes towards this aspect of business and academia. As a serial entrepreneur myself, a former teacher of entrepreneurs inside the University of Washing system, and now a funder of entrepreneurs I cheered his take-no-prisoners approach. And I certainly recognize many of Dr. Hood's traits in myself, my students, and my colleagues.
Whatever industry you're in, but especially if you are in academia and the sciences, you should read this book. If you tend to hold back waiting for perfection before moving ahead with your vision, Dr. Hood's example should spur you to be bolder and take more risks. If you tend to leap ahead of your peers, perhaps often without any sort of operational or scientifically-proven safety net below you, this book perhaps will provide some cautionary examples to make you a better leader as well. Either way, it's a great and thought-provoking read.
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Hood Trailblazer of the Genomics Age (Audible Audio Edition) Luke Timmerman David Baltimore Xe Sands Pear Press Books Reviews
As someone who worked at UW MBT and ISB, this book is a fascinating read; I appreciate the fair presentation of both sides of the story. I did hear of the dysfunction and conflicts but never was privy to them directly nor did I really care because I was focused on work. Really helpful to put all of these famous names I've heard about in context as well as read about many researchers I know personally. I never worked for Lee directly but have had a number of passing interactions with him and he has always been pleasant. I wish him the best going forward and owe him a debt of gratitude for indirectly (and directly) influencing my career in this field.
The Galisonian view of science - named after historian of science Peter Galison - says that science is driven as much or even more by new techniques and instruments as by new ideas. Sadly most people have always placed theoretical ideas at the forefront of scientific revolutions, a view enforced by Thomas Kuhn's famous book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". But a study of the history of science shows that new tools have been as instrumental in opening up whole new areas of science as new ideas. In fact one may argue that ideas allow you to largely explain while novel tools allow you to largely discover.
From the viewpoint of tool-based science, scientists like Faraday, Rutherford, Woodward, and Lamb are as important as Newton, Dirac, Heisenberg and Pauling. To this list of tool-builders and users must be added the name of Leroy Hood. Hood is one of the most important pioneers of the genomics revolution. Seeing far ahead of most biologists in the 1980s when he was at Caltech, he invented four tools that were to revolutionize the theory and practice of genomics the protein sequencer, the protein synthesizer, the DNA synthesizer and the DNA sequencer. At a time when most biologists positively looked down upon technology development and engineers, Hood blazed new paths in combining chemistry, instrumentation and biology. His tools not only allowed biologists to do things better, but allowed them to discover new things which they hadn't imagined before.
Luke Timmerman has written a valuable biography of Hood which would be of interest to almost anyone interested in the recent history of the gene. My only reservations about the book are regarding the paucity of scientific background that often appears in its pages; I think Timmerman could have done a better job putting Hood's achievements in perspective. Hood's essential qualities were ingrained during a vigorous upbringing in rural Montana. His father was a peripatetic telephone engineer who did not give praise easily. He and Hood's mother taught their children to be self-reliant, resilient and hard-working. Throughout his career Hood has been a force of nature, displaying these qualities to an unprecedented extent and leaving behind some of his more talented competitors by sheer tenacity and dedication. Even now, at the age of 75, he runs 3 miles every day and does a hundred push ups. He has also combined great scientific talent with a passion for public speaking and entrepreneurship; through these skills he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from universities, funding agencies and wealthy philanthropists and made millions of his own. He has given generously to the cause of middle and high school education. As he recounts, the most valuable class for him in high school was not math or science but debating. No obstacle has been daunting for him.
Hood got his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Caltech along with an MD from Johns Hopkins. Caltech sought him out as an assistant professor right after graduation. Hood's early contributions were to immunology where he figured out the basis of antibody diversity. But soon he began to broaden his horizons and became one of the first biologists to truly appreciate the impact of new technology on biology. He had an amazing talent to spot big picture problems, drive himself mercilessly to crack them and recruit world class people to solve them. Using his unique skill set he built the first protein sequencer and DNA sequencer and licensed them out to the company Applied Biosystems. The DNA sequencer is at the very heart of the genomics revolution. Gene sequencing is no longer just a tool for faster and more efficient molecular biology, but it has transformed itself into a formidable instrument to explore stunning new domains of biology, from the creation of new organisms to the cracking of the genetic code for all kinds of diseases to the exploration of the world's biodiversity. Hood's work showed that not only can technology enable science but it can actually give rise to new science.
Unfortunately Hood's grand visions and the size of his lab and research projects (at one point his lab numbered more than a hundred people) soon ran afoul of Caltech's desire to stay a small, tightly knit school. Very soon he had a falling out with the faculty. One of his students who is now the head of research at Merck was then a professor at the University of Washington. He persuaded the medical school at UW to invite Hood for a few lectures. The chairman of the department in turn persuaded Bill Gates to attend those lectures. Gates who had started taking an interest in biology in the late 90s was entranced by Hood and immediately agreed to endow a $12 million dollar faculty position at UW for Hood. Hood's moved to UW was accompanied by breathless press releases proclaiming that his appointment was one of the most momentous events in the history of the university.
At UW Hood became the father of a new science systems biology. He was no longer content to just explore genes and whole organisms, instead he wanted to bring about a completely unified view of biology by connecting atoms to molecules to cells, all the way to whole organisms and ecosystems. It was a grand vision, and one which only someone like Hood could pull off. Systems biology is now a mainstay of cutting edge biological science, bringing together biologists, mathematicians, computer scientists and other. But Hood got there first, being one of the first scientists to bring together interdisciplinary subject experts.
Sadly it was here that Hood's failings become clear, and Timmerman pulls no punches in narrating them. Hood was a big picture thinker, not a detail-oriented person. He left the day to day running of his labs to postdocs and research associates. More importantly, he was terrible at interpersonal relationships. He almost never took interest in his students' lives, never picked up the check when he "took them out" for lunch and regularly played favorites. He was not an unkind person, but he was simply too busy, driven to succeed and tone deaf to the everyday human relationships that make any endeavor successful. He was not above claiming credit for others' discoveries, not intentionally but because of his relentless drive to finish that simply left him clueless about such things. He rubbed people the wrong way at Caltech and UW and found even the generous support at UW insufficient for his systems biology vision. Predictably enough, when some of his key allies passed away, he had a falling out at UW too after he tried to sell them a plan for an independent new institute. Confident that his friend Bill Gates would fund it, he went to see Gates at Microsoft, only to be turned away with an icy dismissal (Gates "I never fund things that I think are going to fail."). Undaunted, Hood poured $5 million of his own money into the institute. Personally too he faced a tragedy his wife Valerie who he had married out of college succumbed to Alzheimer's disease.
Since then, the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle has become a thriving research institute that is at the forefront of investigating both basic and applied genetics. Hood continues to be a powerhouse, crisscrossing the world giving talks about how biology is going to revolutionize human life. The system's research may or may not help discover new cures for important diseases, but what's more important is the vision and accomplishment of one man in achieving all that Lee Hood. Hood is a fantastic example of what happens when passionate tenacity for a cause, a deep appreciation of the impact of technology on science, a passion for entrepreneurship and a relentless pursuit of the big picture come together to create an explosive mix. In the DNA sequencers that are humming softly in hundreds of thousands of industrial and academic laboratories and hospitals around the world, reading and rewriting the code of life, Lee Hood's legacy keeps humming on too.
When the author, who for full disclosure I've known for years and consider a friend, told me he was writing a biography I was skeptical it would teach anyone much about the business of biotechnology -- even with such a compelling subject as Dr. Leroy Hood. I was wrong.
The first two-thirds of the book are spectacular. As a non-scientist who has worked in the biotech industry for nearly two decades now, the story of all the technologies our industry takes for granted -- technologies without which modern biotechnology research and development would be impossible -- was gripping and informative, providing great insights. Mr. Timmerman has an unusually great talent for making hard science accessible to the non-scientist, making all of the key portions of the book accessible to anyone.
The last third of the book, and in some ways a consistent underlying theme of Dr. Hood's story, is perhaps less easy to appreciate for people who have not been involved in this business. Understanding biology is orders of magnitude more difficult than anyone expects. Failure is the rule, not the exception. Getting off track, and spending astonishing amounts of time and money on the wrong track, is something everyone in our industry does. Those considered 'geniuses' in our industry simply do it slightly less often -- or at least less publicly -- than their peers. And too often, our industry is just too early and we get caught in the quintessential vicious cycle of being on the bleeding edge of science -- we don't have the tools to prove our theories, society hasn't caught up to be where they need to be to embrace our theories, and (as a consequence) the money isn't there for the resources to prove us right. In the author's hands, Dr. Hood's career is an example of this vicious circle and his genius, and Dr. Hood is legitimately a genius despite whatever his detractors might say, was navigating his way out of that vicious circle quicker than nearly anyone.
As the guy in charge of operations for the venture fund I work for and (initially at least) operations at our startups, I winced at Dr. Hood's cavalier attitudes towards this aspect of business and academia. As a serial entrepreneur myself, a former teacher of entrepreneurs inside the University of Washing system, and now a funder of entrepreneurs I cheered his take-no-prisoners approach. And I certainly recognize many of Dr. Hood's traits in myself, my students, and my colleagues.
Whatever industry you're in, but especially if you are in academia and the sciences, you should read this book. If you tend to hold back waiting for perfection before moving ahead with your vision, Dr. Hood's example should spur you to be bolder and take more risks. If you tend to leap ahead of your peers, perhaps often without any sort of operational or scientifically-proven safety net below you, this book perhaps will provide some cautionary examples to make you a better leader as well. Either way, it's a great and thought-provoking read.
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