Dr. Leland Hartwell is President and Director of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center and Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington.
Dr. Hartwell’s primary research contributions were in identifying genes that control
cell division in yeast, including those necessary for the division process as well as
those necessary for the fi delity of genome reproduction. Subsequently, many of these
same genes have been found to control cell division in humans and oft en to be the
site of alteration in cancer cells.
Dr. Hartwell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received
the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Gairdner Foundation
International Award, the Genetics Society Medal, and the 2001 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine.
Dr. Janice Fischer is a Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where she is an award-winning teacher of genetics and Director of the Biology Instructional Office.
She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard
University, and did postdoctoral research at The University of California at Berkeley and The Whitehead Institute at MIT. In her current research, Dr. Fischer uses
Drosophila to examine the roles of ubiquitin and endocytosis in cell signaling during development.
Dr. Charles Aquadro (Chip) is Professor of Population Genetics, the Charles A.
Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences, and Director of the Center for
Comparative and Population Genomics at Cornell University. He obtained his
Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Georgia, was a postdoc at the National
Institute for Environmental Health Sciences/NIH, and joined the faculty at Cornell
University in 1985 where he is now a professor. He has served as President of the
Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution, is an elected Fellow of the AAAS, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for National Geographic Society’s
Genographic Project, was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the
WGBH/NOVA TV series “Evolution,” and has been a visiting scholar at Cambridge
University (England, 1993) and Harvard University (2007). His research and teaching focuses on molecular population genetics, molecular evolution, and comparative genomics. While Drosophila is his primary research system, recent work has also involved yeast, humans, and plants. At Cornell, he teaches a university-wide course to nonmajors on personal genomics and medicine, and a major’s course in population genetics.
Dr. Michael Goldberg is a professor at Cornell University, where he teaches introductory
genetics and human genetics. He was an undergraduate at Yale University
and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University. Dr. Goldberg performed
postdoctoral research at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel (Switzerland)
and at Harvard University, and he received an NIH Fogarty Senior International
Fellowship for study at Imperial College (England) and fellowships from the
Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti for sabbatical work at the University of Rome (Italy).
His current research uses the tools of Drosophila genetics and the biochemical analysis
of frog egg cell extracts to investigate the mechanisms that ensure proper cell
cycle progression and chromosome segregation during mitosis and meiosis.
Dr. Hood received an MD from the Johns Hopkins Medical Schooland a PhD in Biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. His research interests include immunology, development and the development of biological instrumentation (e.g. the protein sequenator and the automated fluorescent DNA sequencer). His research played a key role in unraveling the mysteries of anitbody diversity. Dr. Hood has taught molecular evolution, immunology, molecular biology and biochemistry. he is currently the Chairman (and founder) of the cross-disciplinary Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington. Dr. Hood has received a variety of awards including the Albert Lasker Award for Medical Research (1987), Dickson Price (1987), Cefas Award for Biochemistry (1989), and the Distinguished Service Award from the national Association of Teachers (1998). He is deeply involved in K-12 science educatiohn. His hobbies include running, mountain climbing, and reading.
