Stanley N. Cohen

In 1973, a paper published by Stanley Norman Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science revolutionized the disciplines of biology, chemistry, and biotechnology. It described a methodology for propagating DNA—the hereditary material of all living cells—in foreign hosts. Their discoveries provided a cornerstone for virtually all of modern biological and medical research and the scientific foundation for a revolution in the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Cohen is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University, and author of more than 270 scientific publications. His many accolades include the National Medal of Science, the National Medal of Technology, the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, the Research Award of the Helmut Horten Foundation, the Prix de l’Institut de la Vie, and the Lemelson-MIT Prize. In 2001, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his DNA research. He has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a trustee emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania.