- Person
- Stanley Cohen
- Lived
- b. 1935
- Field
- Genetics
- From
- American
The story
Cloning a gene is only the beginning. Scientists also want to know when and where a gene is switched on, and how strongly. Stanley Cohen, trained first as a physician, kept developing methods to answer such questions throughout his long career at Stanford, where he became a professor of medicine in 1975 and of genetics in 1977.
His laboratory developed techniques for studying the behaviour of genes in eukaryotic cells, the complex cells of animals, plants and fungi, using reporter genes. A reporter gene produces an easily detected signal, such as a coloured or measurable product, and can be attached to the control region of another gene, so that researchers can see when that gene is active.
Cohen's interests were unusually broad. His papers at the National Library of Medicine show early work on computer-assisted medical diagnosis and on computer systems to monitor drug therapy, including research connected with the MYCIN diagnostic project of Edward Shortliffe, alongside his work on plasmids, cell growth and cancer. Over his career he published more than 360 scientific articles.
In later years his laboratory also turned to the molecular basis of degenerative neurological diseases. It studies how stretches of repeated DNA letters inside certain genes can expand and cause inherited illnesses, including Huntington's disease, some spinocerebellar ataxias and muscular dystrophies, and some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. The work examines how cells read through these expanded repeats and explores treating the diseases by targeting the abnormal genes.
Cohen chaired Stanford's Department of Genetics from 1978 to 1986, helping to shape it during the years when recombinant DNA was transforming biology, and since 1993 he has held the Kwoh-Ting Li professorship in the School of Medicine. Tools for tracking gene activity, like the reporter-gene methods his laboratory helped develop, are now part of the everyday work of biology.
Why it matters
Reporter-gene methods are now standard tools in biology and drug discovery, used to test how genes respond to diseases and medicines.
About Stanley Cohen
Stanford geneticist who, with Herbert Boyer, invented recombinant DNA cloning in 1973, the technique that launched genetic engineering and the biotechnology industry.
More about Stanley Cohen
- Stanley Cohen co-invented genetic engineeringIn 1973 Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer first moved genes between organisms, inventing recombinant DNA, the technique behind human insulin and the biotechnology industry.
- Stanley Cohen helped build biotechnology in TaiwanBeyond his Stanford laboratory, Stanley Cohen helped develop research collaboration with Taiwan's Institute of Molecular Biology and a biotechnology industry in Taiwan.
- Stanley Cohen investigated how bacteria resist antibioticsStanley Cohen's genetic engineering grew out of a medical question: how bacteria share genes that make them resistant to antibiotics.
- Stanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101 carried the first clonesStanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101, cut at a single site by Boyer's enzyme and carrying a tetracycline-resistance gene, became the vehicle for the first DNA cloning experiments in 1973.
- Stanley Cohen backed a safety pause on gene splicingStanley Cohen signed the 1974 letter calling for a voluntary pause on some recombinant DNA experiments until their risks could be assessed, and took part in the 1975 Asilomar conference.
- Stanley Cohen taught bacteria to take up new DNAIn 1972 Stanley Cohen’s Stanford lab showed that a calcium chloride treatment lets E. coli take up plasmid DNA and pass it on to their offspring.
- Stanley Cohen's patent was licensed to hundreds of firmsThe Cohen–Boyer recombinant DNA patents were licensed non-exclusively, for moderate fees, to 478 companies, spreading gene cloning across the biotechnology industry.
Sources
- Stanley Norman Cohen Wikipedia
- Stanley N. Cohen Papers, biographical note National Library of Medicine
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