Richard Gibbs on Jim Watson Personality and Influence
  Richard Gibbs     Biography    
Recorded: 14 May 2004

Jim Watson, I recall, having a few too many drinks and sitting in the bar at Blackford and looking up and seeing Jim standing there. He looked down at me and he said, “All Australians are drunks.” And he walked off. But somehow I didn’t take offense not because its true, I didn’t take offense because it was Jim Watson and I knew that he was more than capable of saying things just to antagonize people.

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.