to introduce to you today our speaker, and one of my fellow course organizers, Dr. Eric

Green. Eric, as many of you know, is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute

here at the NIH. Prior to his appointment into the directorship, he was the scientific

director of our Intramural Program, dating back to 2002, and I had the pleasure of serving

in the role of his deputy during that time. He was also the founding director of the NIH

Intramural Sequencing Center, a state of the art DNA sequencing facility that has played

a really critical role in the advancement of genomic science, particularly in the area

of comparative genomics; and you're going to be hearing a lot about that throughout

this particular series.

During the almost two decades that Eric spent directing his own research program, he and

his group made major contributions towards our understanding of the human genome, having

had significant involvement in the sequencing of the human genome since the very beginning

of the Human Genome Project, and then having developed technology and strategies for the

large-scale analysis of vertebrate genomes, providing us with interesting and seminal

insights about genome structure, function, and evolution. Because of his work in the

field of genomics, Eric's received numerous prestigious awards in recognition, and has

been inducted into both the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association

of American Physicians.

Today, Dr. Green will be presenting his perspective on the current genomic landscape, thereby

setting the stage for many of the topics we're going to talk about throughout this series.

As those of you who've had the opportunity to hear Eric lecture in the past, you know

he is an absolutely wonderful speaker, and I'm sure you'll enjoy today's talk very much.

So with that, please join me in welcoming my longtime colleague and today's lecturer,

Dr. Eric Green.

[applause]