About Leroy Hood

Dr. Hood is the president and co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology. Together with colleagues at Caltech he has developed the instruments that paved the way for the successful mapping of the human genome, prompting the Academy of Engineering to recognize him with the 2011 Fritz J. and Delores H. Russ Prize, awarded for automating DNA sequencing that revolutionized biomedicine and forensic science. These technologies 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. Dr. Hood has also pioneered the usage of such data in a systems approach to biology and medicine.

Dr. Hood has 17 honorary degrees from institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Yale and UCLA and is one of only 15 scientists ever elected to all three academies. Dr. Hood’s contributions to research has been awarded numerous prizes and he has published more than 700 peer-reviewed papers, received 36 patents, and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics. Finally, Dr.Hood has also been instrumental in founding 13 biotechnology companies.