Herbert Boyer
Herbert Boyer | |
|---|---|
Dr. Boyer in 1977 | |
| Born | July 10, 1936 Derry, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Education | Saint Vincent College (B.S., 1958) University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D. 1963) |
| Awards | National Medal of Science (1990) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology |
Herbert Wayne "Herb" Boyer (born July 10, 1936) is an American biotechnologist, researcher and entrepreneur in biotechnology. Along with Stanley N. Cohen and Paul Berg, he discovered recombinant DNA, a method to coax bacteria into producing foreign proteins, which aided in jump-starting the field of genetic engineering. By 1969, he had performed studies on a couple of restriction enzymes of E. coli with especially useful properties.
He is recipient of the 1990 National Medal of Science, co-recipient of the 1996 Lemelson–MIT Prize, and a co-founder of Genentech. He was professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and later served as vice president of Genentech from 1976 until his retirement in 1991.