Quotes from Leroy Hood

If you just focus on the smallest details, you never get the big picture right.

If a startup stays in Microsoft, it does not have a chance, because all it tries to do goes against what Microsoft is about.

All of the details that most of us memorize in medical school - you don't have to learn those things. They're going to be in your computer.

For some people, it's best for their mental health to know they have the gene for Huntington's and some time in the future they'll have a problem. But to other people, it would be a disaster.

Breast cancer isn't one disease - it's probably four or five different types, and without knowing what type a person has, you can't optimize treatment for them.

Genes are natural resources.

Anybody that thought the genome was going to directly provide drugs was a fool. Biological networks are not simple, and making drugs to affect them won't be simple.

What is unique about humans is their individuality.

Medicine will be personalized and preventive: Your genome might predict that you have an 80 percent chance of breast cancer by the time you are 50, but if you take a preventive drug starting when you are 40, the chance will drop to 2 percent.

I already get 10 job offers a year, which is more than I can handle anyway.

We are evolutionary descendents of this marvellous panoply of life. And what that says unequivocally is we have an utter total obligation to make sure we have an environment that not only is good for us but is good for all living organisms.

An important finding is that by determining the genome sequences of an entire family, one can identify many DNA sequencing errors and thus greatly increase the accuracy of the data. This will ultimately help us understand the role of genetic variations in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.

Life is a process of evolution.

Almost never does a single company have excellence in a multiplicity of disciplines.