Bates College: Citation of Leroy Hood

Citation of Leroy Hood by Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Ann B. Scott.

Mr. President, I am honored to present Leroy Hood.

Collaboration within disciplines has long been a hallmark of scientific research. The explosion of information we experience in these times necessitates the broadening of traditional collaborative networks to include a more multidisciplinary approach to scientific questions. Leroy Hood has worked persistently to achieve that wider cooperation by bringing together biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists to examine the genomic foundations of life.

Leroy Hood is a molecular biologist who focuses his research on the genomic analysis of autoimmune diseases, genetic predisposition to disease, new approaches to cancer biology and analysis of T-cell receptor genes. He received the M.D. degree from The John Hopkins University and the Ph.D. in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He spent much of his career at his California alma mater, where he was named the Bowles Professor of Biology in 1975 and later served as Chair of the Division of Biology. Author of many books and articles, he has received a number of awards, including the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and nomination as Scientist of the Year by Research & Development magazine.

In 1985, Hood helped to establish the Human Genome Project, then went on to develop an instrument to automate the process of sequencing and synthesizing DNA. The automatic gene sequencer dramatically shortens the time needed for the analysis of DNA fragments, and is thus crucial for the mapping of the human genome. Convinced that advances in scientific knowledge are predicated on advances in instrumentation and other technologies and convinced of the need for interdisciplinary cooperation, Hood persuaded William Gates III in 1992 to establish at the University of Washington School of Medicine, a new department of molecular biotechnology. As Gates Professor of Molecular Biotechnology, Hood chairs a department staffed by scientists from a wide range of disciplines, who themselves must cross traditional academic boundaries in developing technologies that will shape biological research in the next century.

For his visionary approach to scientific teaching and research that links biology directly to computer technology, and for his contributions to our understanding of human genetics and disease, I present Leroy Hood for the degree Doctor of Science.