Lloyd M. Smith of Applied Biosystems Invents the First Automated DNA Sequencing Machine

In 1987 Lloyd M. Smith, working with  Applied Biosystems, Foster City, California, invented the first commercial automated DNA sequencing machine, based on Leroy Hood’s technology. It used the Sanger sequencing method, a technology which formed the basis of the “first generation” of DNA sequencers^[2][3] and enabled the completion of the human genome project in 2001.^[4]