On Winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine Dr. Hartwell co-founded Rosetta Inpharmatics,
which Merck acquired in July 2001 "Merck is proud of our long association with Lee, beginning with our sponsorship of Fred Hutchinson's Seattle Project in 1994," said Dr. Edward M. Scolnick, executive vice president, science and technology, Merck & Co., Inc. and president, Merck Research Laboratories. "The project focused on cell-cycle cancer research, for which Lee won the Nobel Prize, and ultimately led to the founding of Rosetta Inpharmatics. Lee is a brilliant researcher, who has made seminal contributions to cancer research. He richly deserves this award." Dr. Hartwell recruited Merck's Stephen Friend from Harvard to work with him at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center on the Seattle Project. It was while working on the Seattle Project that the two scientists developed a method for examining large patterns of genes, which enables researchers to more effectively determine if a medicine is or is not hitting its treatment target. Together they co-founded Rosetta Inpharmatics, along with Dr. Lee Hood, who developed inkjet technology for printing gene patterns on microarrays. Merck acquired Rosetta, a leading informational genomics company, in July 2001. The highly skilled Rosetta staff will help Merck to more efficiently analyze gene data to predict how medical compounds will interact with different kinds of cells in the body, therefore, potentially enabling Merck scientists to more accurately select drug targets and speed up the development process. | |
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