Len A. Pennacchio

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Len A. Pennacchio is an American molecular biologist, the head of the Genetic Analysis Program and the Genomic Technologies Program at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California.[1]

Pennacchio did his undergraduate studies at Sonoma State University and then went on to graduate studies at Stanford University, receiving a Ph.D. in genetics in 1998. He became a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1999, and joined the Joint Genome Institute in 2003. He retains his Lawrence Berkeley affiliation as well.[1]

Pennacchio contributed to the human genome project with an analysis of human chromosome 16.[2] His research has also explored gene regulation,[3] the genetic basis of differences in body shape between different individuals,[4] conserved sequences in the genome,[5] and connections between junk DNA and heart disease.[6]

In 2008, Genome Technology magazine named him as one of 30 promising young researchers in their annual "Tomorrow's PIs" edition.[7]


  1. ^ a b JGI – Len A. Pennacchio Archived 2011-04-25 at the Wayback Machine., retrieved 2011-04-04.
  2. ^ Scientists decode human chromosome 16, PhysOrg.com, December 23, 2004 .
  3. ^ Pearson, Helen (November 16, 2006), "Genetic information: Codes and enigmas", Nature, 444 (7117): 259–261, doi:10.1038/444259a, PMID 17108933 .
  4. ^ Check, Erika (March 16, 2007), "How fat genes differ from thin ones: Resequencing effort unpicks genetics of body extremes", Nature, doi:10.1038/news070312-9 .
  5. ^ Sherriff, Lucy (September 7, 2007), "Missing DNA fails to kill mice", The Register .
  6. ^ Fang, Janet (February 21, 2010), "Junk DNA holds clues to heart disease: Deleting a non-coding region leads to narrowing of arteries in mice", Nature, doi:10.1038/news.2010.82 .
  7. ^ Genome Technology Names 2008 'Tomorrow's PIs', RedOrbit, December 8, 2008 .