When Michael Laub arrived at Stanford University in 1997, genomics was in its infancy, with many DNA technologies just being developed. So when he wanted to study cell cycle gene expression in Caulobacter crescentus, he decided to build his own DNA microarray. But the equipment he needed to make primers for the array was booked for months, so Laub began working at the lab during the only hours it was free, from 11 p.m. to 4.a.m. After four months he finished the device. "Now you can just buy them," laughs Laub. "This was a lot more effort."
The California native did his undergraduate work at the University of California, San Diego. His first experience in a lab was working with slime mold, a "super cool organism," says Laub. "I really fell in love with experimental work at that time."
Laub traded slime mold for Caulobacter as a graduate student in ...
