NHGRI's Oral History Collection: Interview with Richard Myers

Dr. Rick Myers is the President and Science Director of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama where he provides strategic oversight for the research enterprise at the Institute, including sustaining a large active laboratory. In this oral history Rick Myers recounts his time at Stanford University where he became the chair of the department of genetics in 1993, and how he helped the Stanford Human Genome Center contribute to the sequencing in the Human Genome Project. Dr. Myers also discusses his involvement in the HapMap Project, ENCODE, and the importance of both GWAS and genes-in-environment initiatives.

Questions asked in this interview:
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00:21 - How did you become involved in genomic research?
04:31 - Can you talk more about your work in DNA sequence variation?
11:42 - Can you talk about early granting mechanisms and technology developments?
14:07 - How did genome science allow for the government to collaborate with public industries?
17:19 - How did the SNP Consortium develop into the HapMap Project?
22:50 - Did genomics and epidemiology get along?
23:59 - Were there challenges in having both GWAS and genes-in-environment initiatives?
25:29 - How did you become interested in population genomics?
29:01 - Why was the Human Genome Diversity Project so controversial?
34:50 - What were some of the challenges when you started ENCODE?
38:02 - Are you having similar issues with GTEx?