David Botstein

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Template:Short description Template:DMCA Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".

David Botstein (September 8, 1942 – February 27, 2026) was an American biologist. He was the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University[1][2][3][4] from 2003 to 2013, and was the Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics. From 2013 to 2023, he was the founding Chief Science Officer of Calico, a biotechnology company with a focus on the biology of aging to devise interventions to enable people to lead longer and healthier lives.[5]

Early life and education

David Botsztejn was born in Zurich on Sept. 8, 1942. His parents, Chaim and Anna Botsztejn (later Charles and Anne Botstein), were Jewish research physicians from Poland, his father a radiation oncologist and his mother a pediatrician.[3] In 1949 the family emigrated to the United States, where their surname was changed to Botstein.[6]

Botstein graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1959, and Harvard University in 1963. He started his Ph.D. work under Maurice Sanford Fox at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then moved and received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1967 for work on P22 phage.[7]

Career

Botstein taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became a professor of genetics. Botstein joined Genentech, Inc. in 1987 as vice president – science. In 1990, he became chairman of the Department of Genetics at Stanford University. Botstein was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1981 and to the Institute of Medicine in 1993.

He was the director of the Integrated Science Program at Princeton University.[8]

In 1980, Botstein and his colleagues Ray White, Mark Skolnick, and Ronald W. Davis proposed a method[9] for constructing a genetic linkage map using restriction fragment length polymorphisms that was used in subsequent years to identify several human disease genes including Huntington's and BRCA1. Variations of this method were used in the mapping efforts that predated and enabled the sequencing phase of the Human Genome Project.

In 1998, Botstein and his postdoctoral fellow Michael Eisen, together with graduate student Paul Spellman and colleague Patrick Brown, developed a statistical method and graphical interface that is widely used to interpret genomic data including microarray data.[10] This approach was refined and applied for diverse applications, including for a molecular classification of heterogenous tumors using gene expression. These efforts included work on discovery of tumor subtypes with Lou Staudt, Ash Alizadeh and Ronald Levy, yielding a refined classification of diffuse large B cell lymphomas, and in painting the molecular portraits for refined classification of breast cancers with Anne-Lise Børresen-Dale and Charles Perou. He has subsequently worked on the creation of the influential Gene Ontology[11] with Michael Ashburner and Suzanna Lewis. He was one of the founding editors of the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell, along with Erkki Ruoslahti and Keith Yamamoto.[12]

In 2013, Botstein was named chief scientific officer of Google's anti-aging health startup Calico.

Personal life and death

Botstein was an alumnus of Camp Rising Sun.[citation needed] He was the brother of the conductor Leon Botstein and of the pediatric cardiologist Eva Botstein Griepp.[6][3]

Botstein died in Palo Alto, California, on February 27, 2026, at the age of 83.[6][13]

Awards

Botstein has won the Eli Lilly and Company Award in Microbiology (1978), the Genetics Society of America Medal (1988, with Ira Herskowitz),[14] the Allan Award of the American Society of Human Genetics (1989, with Ray White), the Gruber Prize in Genetics (2003), the Albany Medical Center Prize (2010, with Eric Lander and Francis Collins), and the Dan David Prize in 2012. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work and in 2020 the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal of the Genetics Society of America.[15] In 2016, Semantic Scholar AI program included Botstein on its list of most top ten most influential biomedical researchers.[16]

References

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

  1. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Princeton University - Department of Molecular Biology - David Botstein". Archived from the original on November 27, 2006. Retrieved November 8, 2006. David Botstein at Princeton Department of Molecular Biology
  2. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."History". Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Botstein, David (2006). "Willing to Do the Math: An Interview with David Botstein". PLOS Genetics (Interview). 2 (5). Interviewed by Gitschier, Jane. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0020079. PMC 1464829. PMID 16733551.
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Daily Princetonian - Mapping the path of genetics". Archived from the original on October 20, 2006. Retrieved October 19, 2006. The Daily Princetonian – Mapping the path of genetics
  5. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Mast, Jason (January 24, 2023). "Calico looking for new chief scientist after celebrated biologist David Botstein quietly retires". STAT News. Retrieved August 2, 2025.
  6. ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kolata, Gina (March 20, 2026). "David Botstein, Gene-Mapping Pioneer, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Botstein, David (1967). The Synthesis and Maturation of Phage-P22 DNA (PhD thesis). University of Michigan. Template:ProQuest.
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Thean, Tara. "Integrated Science Pays Off for Graduates". The Daily Princetonian. Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on August 30, 2011. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Botstein, D.; White, R.; Skolnick, M.; Davis, R. (1980). "Construction of a genetic linkage map in man using restriction fragment length polymorphisms". American Journal of Human Genetics. 32 (3): 314–331. PMC 1686077. PMID 6247908.
  10. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Eisen, M.; Spellman, P.; Brown, P.; Botstein, D. (1998). "Cluster analysis and display of genome-wide expression patterns". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 95 (25): 14863–14868. Bibcode:1998PNAS...9514863E. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.25.14863. PMC 24541. PMID 9843981.
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Botstein, D.; Cherry, J. M.; Ashburner, M.; Ball, C. A.; Blake, J. A.; Butler, H.; Davis, A. P.; Dolinski, K.; Dwight, S. S.; Eppig, J. T.; Harris, M. A.; Hill, D. P.; Issel-Tarver, L.; Kasarskis, A.; Lewis, S.; Matese, J. C.; Richardson, J. E.; Ringwald, M.; Rubin, G. M.; Sherlock, G. (2000). "Gene ontology: Tool for the unification of biology. The Gene Ontology Consortium". Nature Genetics. 25 (1): 25–29. doi:10.1038/75556. PMC 3037419. PMID 10802651. Open access icon
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."MBC Editorial Board".
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."David Botstein". Online Tribute. Retrieved March 1, 2026.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference genemedal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 GSA Awards!". Genes to Genomes. Genetics Society of America. January 29, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Singh, Dalmeet (October 17, 2017). "Who's the most influential biomedical scientist? Computer program guided by artificial intelligence says it knows". Science | AAAS. Retrieved September 22, 2020.

Template:Breakthrough Prize laureates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Authority control/config' not found.

Retrieved from "https://cosmopedia.co/index.php?title=David_Botstein&oldid=2394496"