2017 Annual Report: Science, Not Fiction

 

 

Growing up, I loved reading science fiction. The stories, the creativity, the possibilities. Take Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. The idea that you could extract dinosaur DNA from a mosquito sounded far-fetched. But even 20 years ago, the capabilities we have now would’ve seemed like science fiction—the amount of data we’re able to obtain so quickly, the high-throughput means of discovery. We can even edit genes. I always tell my son, “To me, the iPad and iPhone are science fiction.” We walk around with videophones in our hands. As a kid, that was inconceivable.