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| 2014 ISCB
Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award: Gene Myers |
2014 ISCB ACCOMPLISHMENT
BY A SENIOR SCIENTIST
AWARD: GENE MYERS
By Christiana N. Fogg1,
Diane E. Kovats2*
1 Freelance Science Writer, Kensington,
Maryland, USA
2 Executive Director,
International Society for Computational Biology, La Jolla,
California, USA
* E-mail: dkovats@iscb.org
The International Society
for Computational Biology (ISCB; www.iscb.org) annually recognizes a
senior scientist for his or her outstanding achievements. The ISCB
Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award honors a leader in the
field of computational biology for his or her significant
contributions to the community through research,service, and
education. Dr. Eugene 'Gene' Myers of the Max Planck Institute of
Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden has been selected as
the 2014 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award winner.
Myers was selected by the ISCB's awards committee, which is
chaired by Dr. Bonnie Berger of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). Myers will receive his award and deliver a keynote
address at ISCB's 22nd Annual Intelligent Systems for Molecular
Biology (ISMB) meeting. This meeting is being held in Boston,
Massachusetts, on July 11-15, 2014, at the John B. Hynes Memorial
Convention Center (www.iscb.org/ismb2014).
Gene
Myers: Coding and Decoding
Myers was captivated by
computer programming as a young student. He remembered his
fascination being stoked by a realization and recalls, "A computer
is a programmable device, and once programmed, is a specific device
for doing something that I conceived of. I found this magical." He
completed a BS in mathematics at the California Institute of
Technology, but his interest in biology came during his PhD studies
at the University of Colorado in the late 1970s. Myers recounted
that he initially considered molecular biology as 'a source of
interesting computational questions.' He was studying computer
science under the guidance of his dissertation advisor, Andrzej
Ehrenfeucht, who had eclectic interests that included molecular
biology. Myers, along with fellow graduate students and future
bioinformaticians Gary Stormo and David Haussler, was drawn by
Ehrenfeucht's curiosity about such basic questions as how to compare
DNA sequences and how to build evolutionary trees.
Myers
landed his first faculty position in the Department of Computer
Science at the University of Arizona. Throughout his research
career, he has been interested in sequence assembly. He recollected.
"While I developed many seminal algorithms for sequence comparison
and search in the '80s and early '90s, including BLAST (Basic Local
Alignment Search Tool), the problem that has and continues to
fascinate me to this day is sequence assembly." He is well-known for
being one of the authors of the 1990 manuscript that first described
BLAST, a groundbreaking algorithm that is still used today for
sequence comparison. This paper is also one of the most cited papers
in scientific literature.
Myers's interest in sequence
assembly led him to promote the idea that whole genome shotgun
sequencing could be used on the large and unwieldy human genome.
Craig Venter brought Myers to Celera Genomics in 1998 during their
push to sequence the human genome. Myers recalled writing thousands
of lines of code to build algorithms that could assemble the vast
amounts of sequence data. He considers the success of this landmark
sequencing project as a highlight of his career.
In 2002,
Myers returned to academia in a position at the University of
California, Berkeley's Center for Integrative Genomics. More
recently, Myers headed a lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI)'s Janelia Farm Research Campus. In 2012, he moved to Dresden,
Germany to serve as a director at the Max Planck Institute of
Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Klaus-Tschira chair of
the Systems Biology Center. Myers describes that his "latest focus
all started because [he] wish[es], like many, to 'decode' the
genome." His work has evolved into building microscopic devices and
image analysis tools that can be used to observe and model the inner
workings of cells and biological systems. He sees this type of work
as having the potential to revolutionize medicine. He said, "Really
understanding (in molecular terms) what a cell can do and how what
it does affects its role in a complex tissue or organ will greatly
advance medicine and treatment as well as help us understand
variation across species and how organisms develop."
Myers
recounted the importance of key mentors in the success of his
career. Myers met Webb Miller when he was a young faculty member at
the University of Arizona in the early 1980s. The two struck up a
fruitful collaboration that led to many early papers about sequence
analysis. Myers explained, "Miller helped me greatly in the early
part of my career in that he taught me, through example, that
writing can be fun." Myers gained a different sort of insight while
working for Venter at Celera. He described Venter as "a master of
the sound bite, and while this may sound trivial, it is actually
more important than one might think. Much of one's career success
depends on the ability to present one's ideas in powerful, succinct,
clear ways."
Myers believes that mentorship should be "about
shaping the character of the individual and their understanding of
their role within the research community." He starts with himself as
he aims to 'do [his] best to be a good role model, to instill values
of integrity, objectivity, and openness." Myers has trained students
from varied academic backgrounds throughout his career, and affirmed
that "there is no substitute for passion."
Myers's unique
contributions to computational biology have been recognized by
several awards, including election to the National Academy of
Engineering (2003), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Kannellakis Prize (2002), and the International Max Planck Research
Prize (2004). Bonnie Berger (MIT), chair of the ISCB Nominating
Committee, sees Myers as an exemplar of the Achievement by a Senior
Scientist Award. Berger stated that, "Myers is one of the founders
of the field, bringing his algorithmic expertise to the most
fundamental problems in computational biology. From his role in
creating the indispensable and widely used BLAST program for basic
sequence search, to breaking the barrier of sequencing the human
genome, to deciphering what is coded in DNA, he has launched our
discipline. Myers has been a prominent member of the ISCB community,
serving on the Board of Directors, as an ISCB fellow, and as chair
and area chair for numerous ISMB meetings." Alfonso Valencia, leader
of the Structural Computational Biology group at the Spanish
National Cancer Research Center and president-elect of ISCB, also
sees Myers as a stellar representative of the field. Valencia said
of this year's award winner, "I am particularly happy about the
election of Gene Myers, since he represents the strong roots of
computational biology in algorithmic and method development. The
intensity with which he lives science, the originality of his
approaches, and the attention he dedicates to the technical details
are characteristics of his work and a great example for our new
generations of bioinformaticians and computational biologists."
Myers remains fervent and passionate about the work he does. He
contends that his upbringing, which included traveling the globe
with his family, as well as his innate passion for science and
mathematics have helped make him "flexible, broad-minded, and
curious." He also prefers to keep his research group small while
keeping his research vision large. He advises future and active
scientists, "Simultaneously be able to 'go deep' and yet
continuously remain in an environment that keeps you in touch with
the 'big picture.' And you always have to take on new challenges and
new problems." In the end, he cannot speak strongly enough about the
importance of passion and states, "My overarching advice is to do
what you are passionate about. Ours is not a career for security or
wealth. You have to love it, absolutely love it."
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