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

I was born in Australia. I studied there, got my doctorate in radiation biology. I moved to the U.S. in 1986 and I began to work on the Human Genome Project. I think I was inspired by a family friend when I was very young, who showed me once this stereoscopic microscope, not microscope, but the cards with the stereovision. And I remember seeing insects, and things like this in beautiful three dimensions. And somehow that made me think of science. So I believe it came from there.

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.

SCIENTISTS SPEAKING ABOUT BECOMING A SCIENTIST
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