Richard Gibbs on Career Highlights
  Richard Gibbs     Biography    
Recorded: 14 May 2004

I think of two things. One is more at the simple experimental level and many years ago I designed some tests that allowed the complete ascertainment of gene variation in a particular gene. That made it possible then to do some useful things for genetic diagnosis, but it also was comprehensive and complete description of the variation in that gene. So there was that. And then much later there was the completion of the Human Genome Project. And after working on that project for so many years it was a moment of some great relief.

Richard A. Gibbs is currently the Director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Wofford Cain Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics. He received a B.Sc. (Hons) in 1979 and a Ph.D. in Genetics and Radiation Biology in 1985 at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In 1990 he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine, studying the molecular basis of human X-linked diseases and developing technologies for rapid genetic analysis. He developed several fundamental technologies for nucleic acid analysis. In 1991, he joined the BCM faculty and played a key role in the early planning and development phases of the Human Genome Project. In 1996, he established the BCM Human Genome Sequencing Center when Baylor was chosen as one of six programs to complete the final phase of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Gibbs has also made significant contributions to the deciphering of the fly, mouse, dictyostelium, and rat genomes. Among the numerous awards and honors received by Dr. Gibbs, he was awarded the Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Award in 2000.