NHGRI's Oral History Collection: Interview with Ari Patrinos

Dr. Ari Patrinos is the Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress, and a professor of biological, chemical and mechanical engineering at NYU. He is considered to be a leading authority on structural biology, genomics, global environmental change, and nuclear medicine. This oral history follows his time as Director of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where he worked on the Human Genome Project and initialed the International Panel on Climate Change and the Global Change Research Program. In this interview Ari discusses how the DOE ended up working with NIH on the Human Genome Project, his research, and his relationships with Francis Collins, Craig Venter and Harold Varmus.

Interview Questions:
--------------------------------
00:15 - How did your work at the Department of Energy get you interested in the genetic code?
07:28 - How did this idea become a program supported by Congress?
15:09 - Did anyone in the government push for this collaboration?
16:56 - What were some of the early technological and conceptual challenges?
18:40 - What saved you?
20:00 - Were cultural differences important to the project's cultural success?
21:45 - What are the contrasts between discovery science and hypothesis-driven science?
24:00 - Can you talk about Jim Watson and his vision?
29:19 - Was the biological community always so forthcoming?
33:00 - Can you tell us more about working with Craig Venter?
38:11 - Did all of this create creative tension?
38:57 - Do you think software alone could have assembled base pairs of the human genome?
39:41 - Can you tell us about the start of the Joint Genome Institute? What was your role?
49:28 - What was it like for you to work in both physical and biological science?
54:54 - What was your first impression of Francis Collins?
57:22 - What did you think of Francis Collins' work in science?
57:29 - Did you and Harold Varmus have difficulties in your working relationship?
01:11:50 - How did you feel when you went to the White House Event?
01:12:52 - Was there a moment that you thought the project completion was possible?
01:15:11 - How did you lead the DOE and then go into synthetic genomics?