Arthur Riggs (geneticist)

Arthur Dale Riggs (August 8, 1939 – March 23, 2022) was an American geneticist who worked with Genentech to express the first artificial gene in bacteria. His work was critical to the modern biotechnology industry because it was the first use of molecular techniques in commercial production of drugs and enabled the large-scale manufacturing of protein drugs, including insulin. He was also a major factor in the origin of epigenetics.

Riggs was a professor of biology and, in 2014, founding director of the Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute of City of Hope National Medical Center. He was the founding dean of City of Hope's graduate school, the Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences. He was also director emeritus of the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope National Medical Center, which he headed from 2000 to 2007. Riggs served on the board of trustees at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. In 2006, Riggs was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Provided by Wikipedia