Mark Chee, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert in genomics. He presently serves as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of Prognosys Biosciences, Inc. Previously, he co-founded Illumina, Inc., and was Director of Genetics Research at Affymetrix, Inc. He has published scientific papers on microarray technology and applications and is an inventor on over 40 issued patents. He also serves on the External Scientific Committee of The Cancer Genome Atlas project. Dr. Chee received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of New South Wales and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge.

George Church, Ph.D., is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics. With degrees from Duke University in Chemistry and Zoology, he co-authored research on 3D-software & RNA structure with Sung-Hou Kim. His 1984 Ph.D. from Harvard in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology with Wally Gilbert included the first direct genomic sequencing method. He co-initiated the Human Genome Project a few months later as a Research Scientist at newly formed Biogen Inc. and was a Monsanto Life Sciences Research Fellow at UCSF. He invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods and array DNA synthesizers. Technology transfer of automated sequencing and software to Genome Therapeutics Corp. resulted in the first commercial genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori, 1994). He has served in advisory roles for 12 journals, five granting agencies and 22 biotechnology companies. His current research focuses on integrating biosystems-modeling with personal genomics and synthetic biology.

Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., is currently President of the Institute for Systems Biology. His research has focused on the study of molecular immunology, biotechnology and genomics. His professional career began at the California Institute of Technology where he and his colleagues pioneered four instruments, the DNA gene sequencer and synthesizer and the protein synthesizer and sequencer, which comprise the technological foundation for contemporary molecular biology. In particular, the DNA sequencer has revolutionized genomics by allowing the rapid, automated sequencing of DNA, which played a crucial role in contributing to the successful mapping of the human genome during the 1990s. In 1992, he moved to the University of Washington as founder and Chairman of the cross-disciplinary Department of Molecular Biotechnology. In 2000, he co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington to pioneer systems approaches to biology and medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He has also played a role in founding numerous biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Inc., Applied Biosystems, Inc., Systemix Institute, Darwin Molecular Corp. and Rosetta Inpharmatics LLC. Dr. Hood received an M.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers, is listed as an inventor on 14 issued patents and has co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology and genetics.

Douglas A. Lauffenburger, Ph.D., is the Uncas & Helen Whitaker Professor of Bioengineering and Director of the Biological Engineering Division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also holds appointments in the Department of Biology and the Department of Chemical Engineering. Dr. Lauffenburger received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1975 and the University of Minnesota in 1979, respectively. His major research interests are in cell engineering, the fusion of engineering with molecular cell biology. A central focus of his research program is in receptor-mediated cell communication and intracellular signal transduction, with emphasis on development of predictive computational models derived from quantitative experimental studies, on cell cue/signal/response relationships. These models have applications in drug discovery and development.

Larry Smarr became founding director in 2000 of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a University of California San Diego(UCSD)/University of California Irvine partnership. He holds the Harry E. Gruber professorship in the Jacobs School’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD. At Calit2, Smarr has continued to drive major developments in information infrastructure— including the Internet, Web, scientific visualization, virtual reality, and global telepresence— begun during his previous 15 years as founding Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Smarr served as Principal Investigator (PI) on the National Science Foundation (NSF) OptIPuter grant and is currently PI on the Moore Foundation’s CAMERA microbial metagenomics projects, as well as co-PI on the NSF GreenLight Project. Smarr was a member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee for President Clinton and served until 2005 on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the NASA Advisory Council. He served on Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Broadband Taskforce in 2007. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, he received the IEEE Computer Society Tsutomu Kanai Award for his lifetime achievements in distributed computing systems.