The Pioneers of Molecular Biology: Herb Boyer
	By developing recombinant DNA technology, he raised millions for research—and alienated the Nobel committee
	By Frederic Golden

Posted Sunday, February 9, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST
If you said that Herb Boyer had the Midas touch, you wouldn't be far off. Starting as a lowly $10,500-a-year researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, in the late 1960s, he became molecular biology's first multimillionaire little more than a decade later. His rags-to-riches story jump started a stunning new technology called recombinant DNA, which allowed scientists to take selected genes from one species and splice them into the DNA of another, thereby permanently changing them and their progeny. Boyer's big payday came from co-founding the pioneering gene-splicing company Genentech, but he also paid a personal price. Even though he has contributed more than $20 million to UCSF, many colleagues considered it a breach of the spirit of scientific research to profit from work others undertook without thought of commercial reward.

The most prominent of these was Paul Berg of Stanford, who was the first to transfer genetic material between different species—two kinds of viruses. These were primitive lifeforms, to be sure, but Berg's next step ignited great concern, not only among critics who accused molecular biologists of playing God but also among the scientists themselves. Berg wanted to implant a monkey virus known to cause cancer in mice and other lab animals into the DNA of the common intestinal bacterium E. coli. Fearing the worst, colleagues warned that if his altered bacterium accidentally established itself in humans, it could act as a slow-ticking cancer time bomb. Voluntarily halting his experiments, Berg anguished with his colleagues over ways to reduce the risk. The result: strict federal guidelines, suggested by the scientists themselves, that required such protective measures as the use of bacteria that self-destruct outside the lab environment.

These fears turned out to be vastly exaggerated—and, in any case, could not have stopped gene-splicing's next great leap. Chatting over corned-beef sandwiches late one night in 1972 in a Waikiki deli during a scientific conference in Hawaii, Boyer and another Stanford researcher, Stanley Cohen, discovered they might work together to great mutual advantage. Cohen, unlike Berg, wanted to use free-floating bits of bacterial DNA, known as plasmids, to transfer genes between organisms. Boyer, meanwhile, had isolated a kind of genetic scalpel called a restriction enzyme. Not only does it slice DNA at predetermined sites; it also leaves behind "sticky" ends that can easily be linked to other DNA. By the time they finished their midnight snack, Cohen and Boyer realized they had the makings of a powerful new technology. Using restriction enzymes and plasmids, they could take just about any gene—say, one for making human insulin—insert it into a plasmid, and transfer it into the genome of a bacterium like E. coli. Acting like little factories, the rapidly multiplying microbes could crank out highly pure stores of human insulin.

Reluctantly, Cohen and Boyer took out a patent—just a week before the deadline. Good thing: ultimately their universities collected more than $40 million in royalties—the biggest single patent payout in the University of California's history. Berg won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work; Boyer and Cohen never did. In Boyer's case at least, many suspect that the Nobel committee was annoyed by his willingness to turn genes into gold.

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