Hood: Trailblazer of the Genomics Age

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. Hood led the team at Caltech in the 1980s that developed the first automated DNA sequencer. That invention set the stage for the Human Genome Project, gave rise to the field of genomics, and enabled scientists to envision a future of personalized medicine. In this engrossing biography, Luke Timmerman tells the life story of an exceptionally driven man. Drawing on never-before-reported details from the scientist’s files, public records, and more than 150 interviews with friends and detractors, Hood is a revealing portrait of one of the most influential biologists of our time and a deeply human look at science itself.