Welcome to this week's Biomed Bites, a weekly feature that introduces readers to Stanford's most innovative researchers.
Stanley Cohen, MD, isn't a household name. But it probably should be. The Stanford geneticist was instrumental in the discovery of DNA cloning - the technology that underlies innumerable advances in biotechnology and medicine, and led to the founding of biotech giant Genentech.
It wasn't always thought possible to snip out a gene, stitch it into a new stretch of DNA - often in a different organism - and have it produce a desired protein.
In the video above, Cohen emphasizes that striving to achieve a concrete - and profitable - goal didn't enable the discovery of gene cloning. First, researchers had to work to understand the basic biological processes. "In order to apply knowledge, it's necessary to get that knowledge somehow."
These days, Cohen isn't resting on his laurels. Instead, he's striving to thwart what he considers perhaps the "greatest threat to humanity," drug-resistent microbes.
"My lab is still interested in understanding microbial drug resistance and the way in which microbes exploit host genes to carry out microbial functions such as entering cells, reproducing in cells and exiting from cells," he said. Scientists need that basic knowledge to develop strategies to thwart the process, he added.
Learn more about Stanford Medicine’s Biomedical Innovation Initiative and about other faculty leaders who are driving biomedical innovation here.
Previously: The history of biotech in seven bite-sized chunks, The dawn of DNA cloning: Reflections on the 40th anniversary and Why basic research is the venture capital of the biomedical world
