Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood was born on October 10,1938 and is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Washington.
50 Facts About Leroy Hood
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Leroy Hood established the first cross-disciplinary biology department, the Department of Molecular Biotechnology, at the University of Washington in 1992, and co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in 2000.
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Leroy Hood was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2007 for the invention and commercialization of key instruments, notably the automated DNA sequencer, that have enabled the biotechnology revolution.
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Leroy Hood was born on October 10,1938 in Missoula, Montana to Thomas Edward Leroy Hood and Myrtle Evylan Wadsworth.
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Leroy Hood's father was an electrical engineer, and his mother had a degree in home economics.
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Leroy Hood was one of four children, including a sister and two brothers, including a brother with Down syndrome.
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One of his grandfathers was a rancher and ran a summer geology camp for university students, which Leroy Hood attended as a high school student.
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Leroy Hood excelled in math and science, being one of forty students nationally to win a Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
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Leroy Hood received his undergraduate education from the California Institute of Technology, where his professors included notables such as Richard Feynman and Linus Pauling.
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In 1967, Leroy Hood joined the National Institutes of Health, to work in the Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute as a Senior Investigator.
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Leroy Hood was promoted to associate professor in 1973, full professor in 1975, and was named Bowles Professor of Biology in 1977.
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Leroy Hood has been a leader and a proponent of cross-disciplinary research in chemistry and biology.
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In October 1991, Leroy Hood announced that he would move to the University of Washington at Seattle, to found and direct the first cross-disciplinary biology department, the Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington Medical School.
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In 2000 Leroy Hood resigned his position at the University of Washington to become co-founder and president of the non-profit Institute for Systems Biology, possibly the first independent systems biology organization.
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Leroy Hood's co-founders were protein chemist Ruedi Aebersold and immunologist Alan Aderem.
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Leroy Hood is still an affiliate professor at the University of Washington in Computer Science, Bioengineering and Immunology.
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Leroy Hood believes that a combination of big data and systems biology has the potential to revolutionize healthcare and create a proactive medical approach focused on maximizing the wellness of the individual.
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Leroy Hood has published more than 700 peer-reviewed papers, received 36 patents, and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics.
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Leroy Hood has been instrumental in founding 15 biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin, Rosetta Inpharmatics, Integrated Diagnostics, and Accelerator Corporation.
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Leroy Hood's instruments incorporated concepts of high throughput data accumulation through automation and parallelization.
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Leroy Hood had a strong interest in commercial development, actively filing patents and seeking private funding.
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Leroy Hood was supported by venture capitalist William K Bowes, who hired Sam H Eletr and Andre Marion as president and vice-president of the new company.
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Leroy Hood shipped the first gas phase protein sequencer, Model 4790A, in August 1982.
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Leroy Hood was involved with the Human Genome Project from its first meeting, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1985.
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Leroy Hood became an enthusiastic advocate for The Human Genome Project and its potential.
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Leroy Hood directed the Human Genome Center's sequencing of portions of human chromosomes 14 and 15.
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Leroy Hood made generative discoveries in the field of molecular immunology.
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Leroy Hood conducted pioneering studies on the structure and diversity of the antibody genes.
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Leroy Hood shared the Lasker Award in 1987 for these studies.
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Additionally, Leroy Hood was among the first to study, at the gene level, the MHC gene family and the T-cell receptor gene families as well as being among first to demonstrate that alternative RNA splicing was a fundamental mechanism for generating alternative forms of antibodies.
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Leroy Hood showed that RNA splicing is the mechanism for generating the membrane bound and the secreted forms of antibodies.
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Leroy Hood demonstrated that the condition called "shiverer mouse" arose from a defect in the MBP gene.
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Leroy Hood established in 1992 the first cross-disciplinary biology department, the Molecular Biotechnology Department at the University of Washington.
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Leroy Hood applies the notion of systems biology to the study of medicine, specifically to cancer and neurodegenerative disease.
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Leroy Hood is studying glioblastoma in mice and humans from the systems viewpoint.
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Leroy Hood has pioneered the discovery of biomarker panels for lung cancer and posttraumatic stress syndrome.
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Since 2002 Leroy Hood has progressively expanded his vision of the future of medicine: first focusing on predictive and preventive Medicine; then predictive, preventive and personalized Medicine; and finally predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory, known as P4 Medicine.
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Leroy Hood envisions that by the mid-2020s each individual will be surrounded by a virtual cloud of billions of data points and will have the computational tools to analyze this data and produce simple approaches to optimize wellness and minimize disease for each individual.
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Leroy Hood's view is that P4 Medicine will transform the practice of medicine over the next decade, moving it from a largely reactive, disease-care approach to a proactive P4 approach that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory.
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In 2010, Leroy Hood co-founded the P4 Medicine institute, for the development of Predictive, Preventive, Personalized and Participatory Medicine.
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In 2021 Leroy Hood founded Phenome Health, a non profit focused on implementing his vision.
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Leroy Hood argues that P4 Medicine will improve healthcare, decrease its cost and promote innovation.
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Leroy Hood is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors.
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Leroy Hood is one of only 15 scientists ever elected to all three national academies.
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Leroy Hood is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a fellow of the American Society for Microbiology, and a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
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Leroy Hood has received 17 honorary degrees from institutions including Johns Hopkins and Yale University.
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In 1987 Leroy Hood shared the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Philip Leder and Susumu Tonegawa for studies of the mechanism of immune diversity.
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Leroy Hood subsequently was awarded the Dickson Prize in 1988.
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In 1987, Leroy Hood received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
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In 2019 Leroy Hood was awarded the IRI Medal, established by the Industrial Research Institute.