David Cox, 2003-06-02

Item — Box: AV05, Hi8: CSHL1233

Staff Only

Oral History | David Cox

Scope and Contents

David Cox, geneticist, is interviewed by Mila Pollock and Kiryn Haslinger, on June 2, 2003, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York. David Cox's interview discusses the following: Scene 1. 2003 Cold Spring Harbor Symposia: The Genome of the Homo Sapiens -- Scene 2. Involvement in genomics -- Scene 3. Dangers of genomic research -- Scene 4. Surprises in the Human Genome Project -- Scene 5. Mechanics of the Human Genome Project -- Scene 6. International collaboration -- Scene 7. The future of genomic research -- Scene 8. Competition in science -- Scene 9. Human Genome Project: public vs. private -- Scene 10. Meeting Jim Watson -- Scene 11. Jim Watson, personality and influence: the Human Genome Project -- Scene 12. Rich Roberts -- Scene 13. Science and spirituality.

Dates

Creation: 2003-06-02

Creator

Cox, David (Interviewee, Person)
Haslinger, Kiryn (Interviewer, Person)
Pollock, Ludmila (Interviewer, Person)
Clark, Clare (Transcriber, Person)
Viteri, Carlos (Videographer, Person)
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Library and Archives (Publisher, Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online: https://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/. Select tapes have been digitized thanks to support from CLIR Recordings at Risk Grant awarded in 2021, these tapes are available for research online via our Oral History Website and in person at CSHL Archives. Please contact CSHL Archives archives@cshl.edu with any questions regarding availability.

Biographical / Historical

David Cox received B.A. and M.S. degrees from Brown University and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington. From 1980 to 1993, Dr. Cox held faculty positions in the Departments of Pediatrics, Biochemistry and Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. In 1993, he became Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine as well as the Co-director of the Stanford Genome Center.

Dr Cox was a co-founder of Perlegen, and was Chief Scientific Officer of the Company from 2001 to 2008. In 2008 he joined Pfizer. He has served on several international and national councils and commissions including the Council of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC). He served as a member of the Health Sciences Policy Board of the Institute of Medicine. Dr Cox's honors include election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cox was a member of one of the first groups to begin sequencing the human genome. His relationship with Watson developed from his interest in Cox’s innovative approach to sequencing, called radiation hybrid mapping.

He attended the 68th Cold Spring Harbor symposium to celebrate the completion of the rough draft of the human sequence.

He passed away at the age of 66 in 2013.