|  Biology
Keynoter
Sydney Brenner,
D. Phil.
Distinguished Professor
Salk Institue
According
to the Lasker Foundation, which twice honored him: "Sydney Brenner
likes beginnings.... While many scientists are gearing up to explore the
new frontiers he has pioneered, Brenner's brain is already fidgeting and
scouting around for a fresh path." Today, Dr. Brenner is moving beyond
the genome as an inventory of function, to scout the world of integrated
information in a quest to understand function in complex organisms. "We
now have unprecedented ability to collect data about nature…"
he says, "but there is now a crisis developing in biology, in that
completely unstructured information does not enhance understanding."
"We need a framework to put all of this knowledge
and data into — that is going to be the problem in biology,"
says Dr. Brenner in an interview with "Salk Signals" magazine. "We've reached the stage where we can't talk to each
other — we've all become highly specialized. We need a framework,
a framework where people can come back to us and say, 'Yes, I understand.'
Driving toward that framework is really the big challenge, and I think
that's what I'm going to do."
"There's
nothing else as interesting as this," he says
.Acclaimed as one of the fathers of molecular biology, and a Nobel Laureate
in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Brenner is known for his brilliant creativity
and trenchant wit. His accomplishments include seminal insights in identifying
the existence and function of messenger RNA, and in deducing the triplet
codon for coding proteins; launching c. elegans as a model organism
for studying genetics, development, and complex physiological problems;
advancing understanding of antibody diversity; promoting the concept of
"biological containment" for recombinant DNA research; advocating
and advancing the genome sequencing projects; spearheading the sequencing
of the Japanese pufferfish to explore its compact genome; founding the
multidisciplinary "Molecular Sciences Research Institute" to
study biological function through the marriage of biology, computation
and simulation; and developing a technology for "cloning" DNA
on microbeads.
Born
the son of a shoemaker in Germiston, South Africa in 1927, Dr. Brenner
taught himself to read the newspaper at age 3, began studying chemistry
books at age 6, and at age 14, won a scholarship to medical school at
the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Dr. Brenner received
his bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Witwatersrand,
South Africa (1947 and 1951, respectively) and his D. Phil. in 1954 from
Oxford University, England. In addition to a Nobel Prize and two Lasker
awards, Dr. Brenner has been bestowed with numerous honors and awards.
He also is a Fellow of King's College and the Royal Society. He has honorary
memberships in numerous other societies and honorary degrees in over two
dozen colleges and universities worldwide.
|
 Technology
Keynoter
Nathan
Myhrvold, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Managing Director, Intellectual Ventures
Dr. Nathan Myhrvold is cofounder and managing director
of Intellectual Ventures, a private entrepreneurial firm started with
former Microsoft colleague, Dr. Edward Jung. Before Intellectual Ventures,
Dr. Myhrvold spent 14 years at Microsoft Corporation where he retired
in May 2000 from his position as Chief Technology Officer.
At Intellectual Ventures, Dr. Myhrvold is focused on a
variety of business interests relating to biotechnology, computer science,
intellectual property and invention. Prior to his role as CTO of Microsoft,
Dr. Myhrvold held various positions within the company and was responsible
for founding Microsoft Research and numerous technology groups whose work
resulted in many of Microsoft's core, leading products including Windows
and Windows NT.
Before joining Microsoft in 1986, Dr. Myhrvold was founder
and president of Dynamical Systems. Prior to that he was a postdoctoral
fellow in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics
at Cambridge University and worked with Professor Stephen Hawking on research
in cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space time and quantum theories
of gravitation.
Dr. Myhrvold holds a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical
physics and a master's degree in mathematical economics from Princeton
University. He also has a master's degree in geophysics and space physics
and a bachelor's degree in mathematics, both from the UCLA. Dr. Myhrvold
is an accomplished writer who has published scientific papers in several
journals including Science, Nature, Paleobiology and the Physical Review.
He co-authored The Road Ahead with Bill Gates and has contributed stories
to many popular magazines including Fortune, Time, Talk Magazine, National
Geographic Traveler and the online magazine, Slate
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