President, Institute for Systems Biology
M.D., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 1964
Ph.D., Biochemistry, California Institute of Technology, 1968

Dr. Hood's research has focused on fundamental biology (immunity, evolution, genomics) and on bringing engineering to biology through the development of five instruments the DNA and protein sequencers and synthesizers and the ink-jet oligonucleotide synthesizer (making DNA arrays)-- for deciphering the various types of biological information (DNA, RNA, proteins and systems). These instruments constitute the technological foundation for modern molecular biology and genomics. He has applied these technologies to diverse fields including immunology, neurobiology, cancer biology, molecular evolution and systems medicine.

Dr. Hood has been driven by the conviction that the needs of frontier biology should drive the selection of technologies to be developed, and once a new technology is developed these technologies can revolutionize biology and medicine. His professional career began at Caltech where he and his colleagues pioneered the four instruments mentioned above. In particular, the DNA sequencer has revolutionized genomics by allowing the rapid automated sequencing of DNA, which played a crucial role in contributing to the successful mapping of the human genome during the 1990s. He applied all of these technologies to the study of molecular immunology (and discovered many of the fundamental mechanisms for antibody diversity) and neurobiology (he cured in mice the first neurological disease by gene transfer). In the late 1980s he realized that to really understand immunology would require a systems approach, and began thinking about systems biology.

In 1992, Dr. Hood moved to the University of Washington as founder and Chairman of the cross-disciplinary Department of Molecular Biotechnology (MBT) and developed the ink-jet oligonucleotide synthesizer which synthesized DNA chips. At MBT he initiated systems studies on cancer biology and prion disease. In 2000, he co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington to more effectively continue pioneer systems approaches to biology and medicine. Here he has contributed seminal papers to delineating the systems approach to biology and disease and to pioneer developing new technologies (microfluidics/nanotechnology and molecular imaging) in collaboration with colleagues at Caltech and UCLA, that are establishing the framework for medicine evolving from its current reactive mode to a predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory mode (P4 Medicine TM  medicine) over the next 5-20 years.

Dr. Hood was awarded the Lasker Prize in 1987 for his studies on the mechanism of immune diversity. Dr. Hood was also awarded the 2002 Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for the development of the five different instruments. He received the 2003 Lemelson MIT Prize for Innovation and Invention for the development of the DNA sequencer. Most recently, Dr. Hood's lifelong contributions to biotechnology have earned him the prestigious 2004 Biotechnology Heritage Award, and for his pioneering efforts in molecular diagnostics the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics. In 2006 he received the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment for his extraordinary breakthroughs in biomedical science at the genetic level. Dr. Hood has received 14 honorary degrees from Institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCLA, and Whitman College. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers, received 14 patents, and has co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics, and is just finishing a text book on systems biology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Hood has also played a role in founding more than 14 biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin and Rosetta. He is currently pioneering systems medicine and the systems approach to disease.