Andy Baxevanis: All right, so with that, it's my pleasure
to introduce to you today our speaker, and one of my fellow course organizers, Dr. Eric
Green.
Eric, as many of you know, is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute
here at the NIH.
Prior to his appointment into the directorship, he was the scientific director of our Intramural
Program, dating back to 2002, and I had the pleasure of serving in the role of his deputy
during that time.
He was also the founding director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center, a state of the
art DNA sequencing facility that has played a really critical role in the advancement
of genomic science, particularly in the area of comparative genomics; and you're going
to be hearing a lot about that throughout this particular series.
During the almost two decades that Eric spent directing his own research program, he and
his group made major contributions towards our understanding of the human genome, having
had significant involvement in the sequencing of the human genome since the very beginning
of the Human Genome Project, and then having developed technology and strategies for the
large-scale analysis of vertebrate genomes, providing us with interesting and seminal
insights about genome structure, function, and evolution.
Because of his work in the field of genomics, Eric's received numerous prestigious awards
in recognition, and has been inducted into both the American Society for Clinical Investigation
and the Association of American Physicians.
Today, Dr. Green will be presenting his perspective on the current genomic landscape, thereby
setting the stage for many of the topics we're going to talk about throughout this series.
As those of you who've had the opportunity to hear Eric lecture in the past, you know
he is an absolutely wonderful speaker, and I'm sure you'll enjoy today's talk very much.
So with that, please join me in welcoming my longtime colleague and today's lecturer,
Dr. Eric Green.
[applause]