Leroy Hood's Vision: Sequenced Genome, and Nanodiagnostics Available in 10 Years

Leroy Hood tells the Seattle Post Intelligencer that in 10 years, medicine will have advanced to a point where you can have your genome sequenced for less than $1,000, and nanotechnology will have developed to the point that a single drop of blood will provide a thousand different measurements for diagnosis for predictive and preventative medicine.

[Click here to read the interview.]

Exactly a year ago, I visited Seattle and joined Hood at Julia’s Restaurant to chat over eggs and coffee to begin a day-long briefing at the Institute for Systems Biology on the north shore of Lake Union.

An hour passed like a minute as Hood explained his vision of innovation in biology, based in large part on his experience in developing the DNA sequencer. The key to progress in developing the new tools of molecular biology, Hood said, is nanotechnology and microfluidics. He said the cycle for innovative breakthroughs in these fields are some three to five years away.

Hood is a strong proponent of the importance of academia in the innovation cycle, especially for the types of progress that must be made to produce the vision he so energetically propounds.

Companies are really great at the implementation and the commercialization, but they have never exhibited much in the way of innovation,” Hood told me. “The companies will never do the innovation to get the next stage. Academics will take it there.”

Hood, while well respected and even admired, is not without his detractors -- people that believe his view of innovation is not achievable. Still, Hood is a leading evangelist for a systems approach to biological innovation. And, his views are moving to a larger mainstream audience. Just a few weeks ago, Hood was profiled in a Newsweek special section on the future of medicine.

Hood will keynote the Pacific Northwest Venture Capital Symposium Sept. 11-13 in Seattle.