Hacker News Reader

One thing that surprisingly hasn't happened in the 30 years since the Human Genome Project is a Nobel Prize for the work. There are examples from large physics projects where the leaders were awarded the prize. Surely Francis Collins and perhaps Craig Venter are deserving.

View on HN

Francis Collins and Craig Venter certainly got a lot of the publicity, but arguably there are others who were more influential. E.g. Leroy Hood who developed the first automated DNA sequencer, and Mike Hunkapiller who led the commercial development of the technology at Applied Biosystems to the point where it was practical to sequence the whole genome. Hunkapiller was also the impetus behind the formation of Celera, though Venter was its leader.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com