UW News

October 4, 2007

Philip Green named Inventor of the Year

Dr. Philip Green, professor of genome science, will receive the Fourth Annual Inventor of the Year Award. The award honors a UW faculty researcher who exemplifies the philosophy of technology transfer by taking their inventions from the lab to industrial applications.


A celebratory event will be held in Green’s honor from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, 1400 East Prospect.


The Inventor of the Year Award is given by the UW School of Medicine, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, the Washington Research Foundation, and local biotechnology, medical device and venture capital industries in acknowledgement of the importance of the relationships between the UW and its public and private partners in bringing prosperity to the region and improved healthcare to the world.


Green’s work has had a profound impact on the development and success of genome analysis. His software has made the sequencing of the three billion pairs in the human genome possible and represents the most important technical advance in DNA sequencing of the 1990s.


Green’s integrated software products — Phred, Phrap and Consed-Autofinish — are tools used throughout industry and academia. The programs were some of the first and are still among the most important licensed through UW Tech Transfer. Licenses have been purchased by 250 commercial sites and are furnished at no cost to thousands of academic laboratories. Proceeds from license activities are reinvested in his laboratory and used to support graduate students who are pursuing interdisciplinary training in the design and use of computational methods.


Green, who joined the UW faculty in 1994, is also an adjunct professor of computer science and engineering. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has been honored with a prestigious Gairdner Foundation Award.


To register for the complementary Inventor of the Year Award celebration, visit https://catalysttools.washington.edu/survey/bmahoney/39781, or contact Barbara Mahoney at 206-543-7718 or bmahoney@u.washington.edu.