Business Alabama Magazine
No one has done more to push Alabama’s image as a leader in biotechnology than Huntsville’s Jim Hudson, one of the founders of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.
He first put us on the biotech map as the founder and CEO of for-profit, Huntsville-based Research Genetics Inc., which developed a process for producing artificial DNA for research laboratories at a fraction of the previous cost and in a fraction of the previous time. The company became the largest supplier of DNA stock for the Human Genome Project, involving hundreds of top research centers around the world — many of which mapped their supply lines to Alabama. In 2001, Hudson sold Research Genetics to Invitrogen for $139 million. Along with the Alabama-based Alpha Foundation, Hudson and other principals developed the non-profit HudsonAlpha Institute, which opened in 2007. It pioneers genetics-based medical research, producing a stream of headlines about research findings, most recently, the identification of gene targets for cancer treatment.
To read others named to the list, visit the Business Alabama Magazine list here or read the Huntsville Times article here.