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How DNA Sequencing Was Discovered By Accident | Walter Gilbert on Biogen, Industry, and Art
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How did we go from knowing almost nothing about genes to sequencing the entire human genome? In this episode, we speak with Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Walter Gilbert, whose discoveries helped lay the foundation for modern genomics. Gilbert recounts his remarkable journey from theoretical physics into biology, where he helped discover messenger RNA, uncovered the molecular mechanisms of gene regulation, invented one of the first practical methods for sequencing DNA, and later co-founded Biogen, one of the world's first biotechnology companies. We explore the race to understand how genes work, the search for the elusive lac repressor, how a chance experiment led to the invention…