David Botstein
Born	September 8, 1942 (1942-09-08) (age 83) Zurich,Switzerland
Alma mater	Harvard University University of Michigan
Known for	Genetic linkage map using restriction fragment length polymorphisms
Relatives	Leon Botstein (brother)
Awards	Eli Lilly and Company Award in Microbiology (1978) Genetics Society of America Medal (1988)[1] Allan Award of theAmerican Society of Human Genetics (1989) Rosenstiel Award (1991) Novartis-Drew Award (2003) Gruber Prize in Genetics (2003) Albany Medical Center Prize (2010) Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2013) Warren Alpert Foundation Prize (2013) Double Helix Medal (2015)[2] Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal (2020)
Scientific career
Fields	Genetics
Institutions	MIT Stanford University Genentech Princeton University
Thesis	The Synthesis and Maturation of Phage-P22 DNA (1967)
Doctoral students	Olga Troyanskaya[3] Fred Winston Douglas Koshland Tim Stearns
Other notable students	Michael Eisen (postdoc)
Website	www.princeton.edu/genomics/botstein molbio.princeton.edu/faculty/molbio-faculty/96-botstein

David Botstein (born September 8, 1942) is an American biologist. He was the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics atPrinceton University^[4][5][6][7] from 2003 to 2013, where he remains an Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics. From 2013 to 2023, he was the foundingChief Science Officer ofCalico, a biotechnology company with a focus on thebiology of aging to devise interventions to enable people to lead longer and healthier lives.^[8]

Botstein graduated from theBronx High School of Science in 1959, andHarvard University in 1963. He started his Ph.D. work underMaurice Sanford Fox at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, then moved and received aPh.D. from theUniversity of Michigan in 1967 for work onP22 phage.^[9]

Botstein taught at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became a professor of genetics. Botstein joinedGenentech, Inc. in 1987 as vice president – science. In 1990, he became chairman of the Department of Genetics atStanford University. Botstein was elected to theU.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1981 and to theInstitute of Medicine in 1993.

Botstein is the director of the Integrated Science Program atPrinceton University.^[10]

In 1980, Botstein and his colleagues Ray White, Mark Skolnick, andRonald W. Davis proposed a method^[11] for constructing agenetic linkage map usingrestriction fragment length polymorphisms that was used in subsequent years to identify several human disease genes includingHuntington's andBRCA1. Variations of this method were used in the mapping efforts that predated and enabled the sequencing phase of theHuman Genome Project.

In 1998, Botstein and his postdoctoral fellowMichael Eisen, together with graduate student Paul Spellman and colleaguePatrick Brown, developed a statistical method and graphical interface that is widely used to interpret genomic data includingmicroarray data.^[12] This approach was refined and applied for diverse applications, including for a molecular classification of heterogenous tumors using gene expression. These efforts included work on discovery of tumor subtypes withLou Staudt,Ash Alizadeh andRonald Levy, yielding a refined classification ofdiffuse large B cell lymphomas, and in painting the molecular portraits for refined classification ofbreast cancers withAnne-Lise Børresen-Dale and Charles Perou. He has subsequently worked on the creation of the influentialGene Ontology^[13] withMichael Ashburner andSuzanna Lewis. He is one of the founding editors of the journalMolecular Biology of the Cell, along withErkki Ruoslahti andKeith Yamamoto.^[14]

In 2013, Botstein was named chief scientific officer ofGoogle'santi-aging health startupCalico.

Botstein has won theEli Lilly and Company Award in Microbiology (1978), the Genetics Society of America Medal (1988, withIra Herskowitz),^[1] theAllan Award of theAmerican Society of Human Genetics (1989, withRay White), theGruber Prize in Genetics (2003), theAlbany Medical Center Prize (2010, withEric Lander andFrancis Collins), and theDan David Prize in 2012. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 millionBreakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work and in 2020 theThomas Hunt Morgan Medal of theGenetics Society of America.^[15] In 2016,Semantic Scholar AI program included Botstein on its list of most top ten most influential biomedical researchers.^[16]

Botstein is an alumnus ofCamp Rising Sun. He is the brother of theconductorLeon Botstein. Both of Botstein's parents were physicians.^[17]

• David Botstein's Talk: "An Integrated Science Curriculum"
• David Botstein iBiology Seminar: "Fruits of the Genome Sequence"
• David Botstein personal archives, MC-0227. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Distinctive Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• 1942 births
• The Bronx High School of Science alumni
• Living people
• Harvard University alumni
• University of Michigan alumni
• American geneticists
• Jewish American scientists
• 20th-century Swiss people
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Genentech people
• Stanford University School of Medicine faculty
• American biotechnologists
• Biogerontologists
• Princeton University faculty
• American academic journal editors
• American print editors
• Media founders
• American microbiologists
• Fellows of the AACR Academy
• Scientists from New York (state)
• American scientists
• Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology
• 21st-century American Jews
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine

• Articles with short description
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