Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood (born October 10, 1938) is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Washington.

[20] Hood was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2007 for the invention and commercialization of key instruments, notably the automated DNA sequencer, that have enabled the biotechnology revolution.

[1] In addition, Hood played several high school sports and debate, the latter of which he would credit for his success in science communication later in his career.

[23] Hood received his undergraduate education from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where his professors included notables such as Richard Feynman[17] and Linus Pauling.

[13][1] Hood received an MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1964 and a PhD from Caltech in 1968,[24] where he worked with William J. Dreyer on antibody diversity.

[16] Dreyer is credited with giving Hood two important pieces of advice: “If you want to practice biology, do it on the leading edge, and if you want to be on the leading edge, invent new tools for deciphering biological information.”[25] In 1967, Hood joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to work in the immunology branch of the National Cancer Institute as a senior investigator.

[16] In 1989 he stepped down as chairman of the Division of Biology to create and become director of a newly funded NSF Science and Technology Center at Caltech.

A relatively small school, Caltech was not well-suited to the creation of the type of large interdisciplinary research organization that Hood sought.

[37] Hood believes that a combination of big data and systems biology has the potential to revolutionize healthcare and create a proactive medical approach focused on maximizing the wellness of the individual.

PeaceHealth is a not-for-profit Catholic health care system, operating in a variety of communities in Alaska, Washington and Oregon.

[37] Hood has published more than 700 peer-reviewed papers, received 36 patents, and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics.

[47] He has been instrumental in founding 15 biotechnology companies,[11] including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin, Rosetta Inpharmatics, Integrated Diagnostics, and Accelerator Corporation.

[50] While praising the quality of its offering, industry commentators attributed Arivale's closure to a failure to capture sufficient Customer lifetime value to create a profit from providing the service, suggesting that insufficient numbers of customers stuck with the data-driven, personalized dietary and lifestyle coaching it provided for long enough at a price point which would make the business model work.

When applied to the study of protein and DNA chemistries, these ideas were essential to the rapid deciphering of biological information.

[52][53][54] Hood had a strong interest in commercial development, actively filing patents and seeking private funding.

[58] Edman and Begg's 1967 design involves placing a protein or peptide sample into a spinning cup in a temperature controlled chamber.

[59] Hood and Hunkapiller made a number of modifications, further automating steps in the analysis and improving effectiveness and shortening cycle time.

The commercially available instrument from Applied Biosystems led to a number of significant results, including the synthesis of HIV-1 protease in a collaboration between Kent and Merck and the analysis of its crystalline structure.

[30][72][73] Researchers Jane Z. Sanders and Lloyd M. Smith developed a way to color code the basic nucleotide units of DNA with fluorescent tags, green for adenine (A), yellow-green for guanine (G), orange for cytosine (C) and red for thymine (T).

[74] Four differently colored fluorophores, each one specific to a reaction with one of the bases, are covalently attached to the oligonucleotide primer for the enzymatic DNA sequence analysis.

[7][75] Hood was involved with the Human Genome Project from its first meeting, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1985.

His studies of the amino acid sequences of immunoglobulins (also known as antibodies) helped to fuel the 1970s’ debate regarding the generation of immune diversity and supported the hypothesis advanced by William J. Dreyer that immunoglobulin (antibody) chains are encoded by two separate genes (a constant and a variable gene).

[105] Hood applies the notion of systems biology to the study of medicine,[106][107] specifically to cancer[108] and neurodegenerative disease.

These studies are the first to explain the dynamics of diseased-perturbed networks and have expanded to include frontal temporal dementia and Huntington's disease.

[112] Hood advocates several practices in the burgeoning field of systems medicine, including: (1) The use of family genome sequencing, integrating genetics and genomics, to identify genetic variants associated with health and disease[113] (2) The use of targeted proteomics and biomarkers as a window into health and disease.

[42][53][54] According to this view, the patient's demand for better healthcare will be the real driving force for the acceptance of P4 Medicine by the medical community.

This driving force is exemplified by the movement known as the quantified self, which uses digital devices to monitor self-parameters such as weight, activity, sleep, diet, etc.

[132] In 1987 Hood shared the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Philip Leder and Susumu Tonegawa for studies of the mechanism of immune diversity.

[134] He won the 2002 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology for developing automated technologies for analyzing proteins and genes;[2] the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Innovation and Invention for inventing "four instruments that have unlocked much of the mystery of human biology" by helping decode the genome;[135] the 2004 Biotechnology Heritage Award;[136][137] the 2004 Association for Molecular Pathology Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics[138] the 2006 Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment,[139] for breakthroughs in biomedical science on the genetic level; inclusion in the 2007 Inventors Hall of Fame for the automated DNA sequencer;[140] the 2008 Pittcon Heritage Award for helping to transform the biotechnology industry;[141][142] and the 2010 Kistler Prize for contributions to genetics that have increased knowledge of the human genome and its relationship to society.