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Obituary

Robert A. Swanson (1947–99)

Nature volume 403, page 264 (2000)Cite this article

Swanson grew up in Florida and was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining degrees in chemistry and business in 1970. He started his professional career as a venture capitalist with Citicorp in New York, then in 1973 moved west to San Francisco and began a lifelong fascination with molecular biology. He was in the right place at the right time, as the pioneering gene-cloning experiments of Herbert Boyer, Stanley Cohen and colleagues were being carried out only minutes from his office.

In 1976, he arranged a fateful meeting with Boyer — a meeting now commemorated by a life-sized statue of the two men in the Genentech research complex (Swanson's is shown in the picture here). After several hours and a few beers, they agreed to team up to create Genentech, the world's first biotechnology company. The upshot was an industry that is now worth more than $100 billion and is responsible for around 80 approved drugs that benefit millions of people.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tularik, Inc., 2 Corporate Drive, South San Francisco, 94080, California , USA

    David V. Goeddel

  2. Genentech, Inc., 1 DNA Way, South San Francisco, 94080, California, USA

    Arthur D. Levinson

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  1. David V. Goeddel
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  2. Arthur D. Levinson
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Correspondence to David V. Goeddel or Arthur D. Levinson.

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Goeddel, D., Levinson, A. Robert A. Swanson (1947–99). Nature 403, 264 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35002244

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