Bob Waterston

Robert Hugh "Bob" Waterston, (born September 17, 1943) is an American biologist. He is best known for his work on the Human Genome Project, for which he was a pioneer along with John Sulston.

Robert Waterston
Born
Robert Hugh Waterston

(1943-09-17) September 17, 1943
NationalityAmerican
Alma materPrinceton University
University of Chicago
Known forCaenorhabditis elegans' Genome Sequencing Human Genome Project
AwardsGeorge W. Beadle Award (2000)[2]
Gairdner Award (2002)
Dan David Prize (2002)
Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize (2002)
Gruber Prize in Genetics (2005)
Scientific career
FieldsGenome Science, Cell Biology, Genetics
InstitutionsWashington University in St. Louis
University of Washington[3]

Education

Waterston attended Princeton as an undergraduate where he majored in engineering; he wrote his senior dissertation on the plays of Eugene O'Neill. While on a visit to Germany he took courses in biology – in German – and returned to take up a place at the school of medicine of the University of Chicago. In 1972, he acquired both MD and PhD degrees, with his thesis focusing on immunology.[2]

Career

Following a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, he joined the Washington University School of Medicine as assistant professor of anatomy and neurobiology in 1976.[4] A few years later, he switched to the Department of Genetics, where by 1991 he became chair.

In the mid-1980s he made a sabbatical visit to the LMB, ostensibly to continue his work with Brenner. However, the only space available was in the room where John Sulston and Alan Coulson were beginning to map the genome of the nematode worm C. elegans. Waterston joined them, and after his return to St. Louis, the worm map became a collaborative project between the two labs.

In 1989, one of the first Human Genome Project grants went to Waterston and Sulston to begin the sequencing of the worm genome. They were so successful that at the same time that the Wellcome Trust established the Sanger Centre (now the Wellcome Sanger Institute) with Sulston at its head, Waterston received funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute to undertake large-scale human sequencing at his Washington University lab. The partnership became the first to complete the sequence of a multicellular organism when the worm genome was published in December 1998.[5] The partnership went on have leading roles in the sequencing of both the mouse and chimpanzee genomes.

In January 2003, Waterston moved from St. Louis to become the new William Gates III Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science, Professor and Chair of the Department of Genome Sciences, at the University of Washington in Seattle.[6] Waterston served in his position as chair of Genome Sciences until 2018.[7]

Waterston has always been committed to the free release of scientific information, and was an influential voice in establishing the Bermuda Principles on the public release of DNA sequence data in 1996.[8][9]

Awards and honors

Waterston and Sulston have jointly won numerous awards for their scientific work and their support for the scientific community, including the Gairdner Award, the General Motors prize, the Alfred P. Sloan Award, the Dan David Prize and the George W. Beadle Award of the Genetics Society of America.[6][7][10] In 2005, Waterston received the Gruber Prize in Genetics.[11]

References

  1. "How Stuff Works Bob Waterston". Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  2. Kimble, J. (2001). "The 2000 George W. Beadle Medal. John Sulston and Robert Waterston". Genetics. 157 (2): 467–468. doi:10.1093/genetics/157.2.467. PMC 1461515. PMID 11370623.
  3. "A history of Genome Sciences" (PDF). Genome Sciences, University of Washington. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  4. "Robert Waterston - Biography". Retrieved 12 August 2023.
  5. c. Elegans Sequencing, Consortium (1998-12-11). "Genome Sequence of the Nematode C. elegans: A Platform for Investigating Biology". Science. 282 (5396): 2012–2018. doi:10.1126/science.282.5396.2012. PMID 9851916.
  6. University, Photo courtesy of Washington; Louis, St. "Waterston named to chair Genome Sciences". UW News. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
  7. "Dr. Robert Waterston | Genome Sciences Centre". www.bcgsc.ca. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
  8. "The Bermuda Principles". dukespace.lib.duke.edu. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
  9. Analyst, Kathie Y. Sun NHGRI Scientific Program. "Worm genome sequencing influenced Human Genome Project's data sharing principles". Genome.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
  10. "Robert Waterston | Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA)". carta.anthropogeny.org. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  11. "Robert Hugh Waterston | Gruber Foundation". gruber.yale.edu. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
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