"Stories
from our Genome"
Steve Olson is the author of Mapping
Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins (2002), one of
five nominees for the 2002 nonfiction National Book Award and won the
Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers.
He also has written several other books, including Shaping the Future:
Biological Research and Human Values and Biotechnology: An Industry Comes
of Age. His new book, Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's
Toughest Math Competition, was published by Houghton Mifflin in April 2004.
He has been a consultant writer for the National Academy of Sciences, the
Institute for Genomic Research, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the
National Institutes of Health, and many other organizations. He is the
author of articles in The Atlantic Monthly, Science, The Washington Post,
The Washingtonian, Slate, Teacher, Astronomy, Science 82-86, and other
magazines. From 1989 through 1992 he served as Special Assistant for Communications
in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Olson earned his Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in Physics
from Yale University in 1978 and since has worked as a writer and editor.
"Bringing
the Genome Home"
Francis S. Collins is a physician-geneticist
and the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH.
In that role he oversaw a fifteen-year project aimed at mapping and sequencing
all human DNA.
Collins obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University
of Virginia, and a PhD in physical chemistry at Yale University. He then
enrolled in medical school at the University of North Carolina, where he
encountered the field of medical genetics. After a residency and chief
residency in internal medicine in Chapel Hill, he returned to Yale for
a fellowship in human genetics, where he worked on methods of crossing
large stretches of DNA to identify disease genes. He continued to develop
these ideas after joining the faculty at the University of Michigan in
1984. This approach has developed into a powerful component of modem molecular
genetics.
Together with Lap-Chee Tsui and Jack Riordan of the Hospital for Sick
Children in Toronto, Canada, his research team identified the gene for
cystic fibrosis using this strategy in 1989. That was followed by his group's
identification of the neurofibromatosis gene in 1990, and a successful
collaborative effort to identify the gene for Huntington disease in 1993.
That same year, Collins accepted an invitation to become the second director
of the National Center for Human Genome Research, following in the footsteps
of James Watson. In that role, Collins has overseen the successful completion
of several of the Genome Project's goals, including completion of the sequencing
of the human genome. The Institute just completed an ambitious strategic
plan that includes an International Haplotype Map and small molecule library,
among other things.
In addition, Collins founded a new NIH intramural research program in
genome research, which has now grown to become one of the premier research
units in human genetics in the country. His own research laboratory continues
to be vigorously active, exploring the molecular genetics of breast cancer,
prostate cancer, adult-onset diabetes, and other disorders. His accomplishments
have been recognized by election to the Institute of Medicine and the National
Academy of Sciences, and numerous national and international awards.
"Implications
of Genetic Variation and Race"
Vivian Ota-Wang is
currently a program director for the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications
Research Program at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)/NIH/DHHS.
Her work is in Complex Traits, Behavioral and Community Research. She
was formerly an assistant Professor at the Center For Genetics and Health
Policy in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Human
and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. She is a Board
Certified Genetic Counselor, a Fellow of the American Medical Association's
College of Medical Genetics, and a Diplomat of the American Board of Genetic
Counseling. She is the former chair of the Ethics subcommittee for the
National Society of Genetic Counselors and currently serves on several
national advisory committees including the: Ethical. Legal. and Social
Issues (ELSI) Research Advisory Group; International Haplotype May Project
Steering Committee; the ELSI Group for the International HapMap Project
(all of the NIH-National Human Genome Research Institute); and the Cancer
Genetics Network Behavioral Sciences Research Advisory Board of the NIH-National
Cancer Institute.
Additionally, she is an appointed member to the DHHS-Office on Women's
Health's Minority Women's Health Panel of Experts where she is Chair of
the Policy/Implementation Subcommittee. She was also on the Board of Directors
and Executive Committee of the Genetic Alliance.
"Lay
Perspective on Genetic Variation"
Sharon Terry has served as the president
of the Genetic Alliance for the last two years and is the founding executive
director of PXE International, a lay advocacy group for the genetic condition
pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), a condition with which both of her children
have been diagnosed. She is an advisor to the National Institutes of Health's
National Human Genome Research Institute and the Johns Hopkins University
Genetics and Public Policy Center, a board member of the Biotechnology
Institute, and serves on many of the major governmental advisory committees
on medical research.
Terry has co-authored numerous scientific papers including two about discovery
of PXE gene (of which she is a co-inventor) published in Nature Genetics.
Most recently, she founded the Genetic Alliance BioBank, a cooperative
biological samples and data repository.
Back to Top
