Frederick Sanger, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1958 for determining the structure of insulin, and again in 1980 for his work on sequencing DNA, has died at age 95.
He was a biochemist at the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge until his retirement in 1983. His group was the first to produce a whole genome sequence — 5,000 letters long of the virus phiX174 — and they also sequenced the first bit of human genetic material, the 16,000-letter sequence of DNA in a mitochondrion, the batteries inside biological cells.
His sequencing technique — dideoxy, or Sanger, sequencing — is still in use today. The Wellcome Trust named the Sanger Centre after him.
Proteome Sciences said this week it has appointed Premal Shah vice president of business development.
Shah was previously director of business development at Genomic Health.
Oncoplex Diagnostics has appointed Jedd Levine chief medical officer.
Levine is managing director with JL Healthcare Consultants and he has a faculty appointment in the Medical Oncology department at the Yale University School of Medicine. He also has served as managing partner for Connecticut Oncology and Hematology, CMO at Egenix, and as a clinical assistant professor on the medical oncology faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine.