Patrick O. Brown, MD, PhD is an emeritus professor of biochemistry in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Pat received his BA, MD and PhD (in Biochemistry) at the University of Chicago, where he defined the essential mechanisms of DNA topoisomerases. He completed a pediatrics residency at Children’s Memorial Hospital, then, as a post-doctoral fellow working with Mike Bishop and Harold Varmus, he identified the mechanism by which HIV and other retroviruses incorporate their genes into the genomes of the cells they infect.
As an HHMI investigator at Stanford, Pat and his colleagues invented the DNA microarray – a technology that, for the first time, enabled researchers to read and interpret the activity of all the genes in a genome – the ever-evolving script for each cell’s life story. His group developed new statistical and computational tools for analyzing gene expression and function on an unprecedented scale, and pioneered the use of gene expression patterns to classify cancers and improve prediction of their clinical course.
With Harold Varmus and Michael Eisen, he founded the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the first nonprofit open-access publisher of scientific and medical research.
When he recognized that replacing the use of animals as a food technology could rapidly arrest global heating and reverse the global collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity, Pat founded Impossible Foods, a company that makes delicious, nutritious, affordable and sustainable meats directly from plants.
Pat is a member of the US National Academies of Sciences and Medicine and recipient of the National Academy of Sciences award in Molecular Biology, the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor and the UN Champion of the Earth award. He has published more than 250 scientific articles.