---
title: Power in Numbers
description: Power in Numbers
---

[JoVE BLOG | JoVE](https://blog.jove.com)

# [Power in Numbers](https://blog.jove.com/scientist-blog/power-in-numbers)

 Written by [Katherine Scott](https://blog.jove.com/author/katherine-scott) | Jan 4, 2012, 5:00:00 AM

[Dr. Eric Lander](http://www.broadinstitute.org/about/bios/bio-lander.html), founding director of the [Broad Insititute](http://www.broadinstitute.org/) and advocate of collaboration in science, was profiled in [The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.html) earlier this week.

Though he received his Ph.D. from [Oxford University](http://www.ox.ac.uk/) in mathematics, Dr. Lander is now a leader in the field of genetics, and was a key contributor to the [Human Genome Project](http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml). In 2009 he authored a video-article in JoVE entitled "[A Method to Study the Three-Dimensional Architecture of Genomes](http://www.jove.com/video/1869/hi-c-a-method-to-study-the-three-dimensional-architecture-of-genomes)."

**[Power in Numbers](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/broad-institute-director-finds-power-in-numbers.html?ref=science)**

His Ph.D. is in pure mathematics, in a subfield so esoteric and specialized that even if someone gets a great result, it can be appreciated by only a few dozen people in the entire world. But he left that world behind and, with no formal training, entered another: the world of molecular biology, medicine and genomics.

<https://blog.jove.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Genome-folding-1-1.jpg?hsLang=en>

As founding director of the [Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T.](http://www.broadinstitute.org/), he heads a biology empire and raises money from billionaires. He also teaches freshman biology (a course he never took) at M.I.T., advises President Obama on science and runs a lab.

Eric Lander — as a friend, Prof. David Botstein of Princeton, put it — knows how to spot and seize an opportunity when one arises. And he has another quality, says his high school friend Paul Zeitz: bravery combined with optimism.

To read the full article, [click here](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/broad-institute-director-finds-power-in-numbers.html?ref=science).

[View full post](https://blog.jove.com/scientist-blog/power-in-numbers)

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