Science & invention
Bob Waterston
born 1943 · biologist, geneticist
Genome scientist who, with John Sulston, led the sequencing of the first animal genome and was a leader of the Human Genome Project; born in Detroit.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 83- Birth name
- Robert Hugh Waterston
- Also known as
- Robert Waterston
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Waterston was born in Detroit in 1943; his education and career unfolded elsewhere. He studied engineering at Princeton, discovered biology during a stay in Germany, and earned both an MD and a PhD at the University of Chicago in 1972. After postdoctoral work with Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where he began studying the tiny worm C. elegans, he joined Washington University in St. Louis in 1976 and later built its genome sequencing center. With John Sulston he led the project that in 1998 produced the first complete genome sequence of an animal, C. elegans, and their two centers became major contributors to the public Human Genome Project. In 2003 he moved to the University of Washington in Seattle to chair its department of genome sciences.
Highlights
- Led, with John Sulston, the first complete animal genome sequence (C. elegans, 1998)
- Leader in the public Human Genome Project
- Founded the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis
- Chair of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, from 2003
- Born in Detroit, 1943