 Hi Dr. Grain. Hey, good morning. Your staff has 60 questions to ask you. Do you have a few minutes? Sure. What how do you describe yourself in three words? tenacious Energetic and funny. Well, we look forward to you being funny. I hope not to disappoint. What's your favorite hobby favorite hobby digital photography? What's your go-to karaoke song Mack the knife? What's your favorite band? Chicago? What is your favorite superhero? That would be Francis Collins Do you have a secret talent? I do It's secret. What? Oh, no secret. Give us a hint Can you give us a hint? It's secret Well, we're gonna walk out here because Devanna has one question for you. Okay And do you have any nicknames? In college a lot of people called me Ladoo Hey Dr. Grain. Good morning. Good morning. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received? Oh, that would be be serious in what you do, but don't take yourself too serious Sure What advice would you give your to your younger self? Take a statistics class? What's your worst habit? meticulous editing What do you find yourself doing a lot these days? Email and a lot more email What do you do on your days off? I catch up on email What's something you'd like to say to your social media followers? I hope you're enjoying my tweets because we're working hard at them We sure are. What's your favorite thing to eat? Lasagna dessert. You can't live without baklava Who do you look up to most in life? probably sort of a combined Person that reflects some of the key mentors I had in my life starting in high school up to the present time I think for born here has a question for you. Oh, hey. Good morning. Hey What is one of your favorite places to visit in the world? Africa almost any country in Africa What's something that you truly cherish? I have an autographed Facebook bat that Alex Rodriguez gave me. No way. It's in my office. Wow And what's one thing that you could never like living on? One thing I could never live without Wi-Fi So what have you learned from the people you look up to? What have I learned from the people I look up to how to be kind and How to be helpful? fictional character you'd want to spend the day with E.T. A movie you could watch over and over again That's hard because there's two Mel Brooks movies I could do that to either history of the world part one or young Frankenstein Not part two. There isn't a part two Well, that's anti-climactic So where are you from? St. Louis. What do you miss most about St. Louis? My parents So I think here has a couple of questions for you who has questions Kim Kim right over here. Oh, hey, Kim Hey, good morning. Hi, fine I can play trumpet or I once could play trumpet. I was a piano player And I'm a little bit of a hacky kind of drummer What's your favorite song to play on Wisconsin and what was the name of your band in medical school the hot dogs? So what's the best thing that happened to you in 2019? 2019. Oh, well, I hired this really terrific new communications director. You should really meet her sometime Well, I hope she's all she's cracked up to be what are you looking forward to in 2020? I am looking forward to Completing the Institute's strategic planning process and publishing our new strategic plan in October. Oh, I think Mike over there had a question for you Mike had a question. Hey, Mike. Good morning. How are you? Pretty good. How are you? Good to see you So, uh, when did you realize you wanted to work in the field of genomics that would have been in 1988 when I decided what I was going to do for my postdoctoral training, okay? And what advice would you give to aspiring students aspiring to study in genomics? I would tell them to be sure to get really good training in data science and computational biology Okay, that's great advice. And where would you like to see genome research in the next 10 years? I would like to see genome research Really changing the practice of medicine over the next 10 years Thanks So what's your favorite thing in your office? That's hard. It would either be my Barack Obama autographed photograph Or it would be a sign I keep above my door that is a quote from Albert Einstein That says if we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research. Oh, are you sure that wasn't been Franklin? well Supposedly was Albert Einstein That's what the internet said So what's your favorite gene? Acistic fibrosis gene. What's your proudest professional moment? Being named NHGRI director by Francis Collins in front of the entire Institute And what chromosome did you help that chromosome 7? Why chromosome 7? There were a variety of reasons We didn't want to pick anything too small and we didn't want to pick anything too big because we didn't really know what we Were doing so we picked something in the middle Should I get my genome sequenced I would say as of today You should only get your genome sequenced if you have a medical reason to do so have you had your sequenced I have not Why not? Because I haven't medically needed to yet. Oh, what do you think they'd find if they sequenced my genome? They would find about six billion G's A's T's and C's in precise order. Do you think they'd find any secret superhero powers? No, I'm not that interesting. Can you play LaBomba? No, not readily What's the biggest challenge about being the director? The biggest challenge about being the NHGRI director is that if you're doing a really good job, someone's really pissed at you at any moment in time What's the best part about being the director is occasionally feeling like it's good to be the king I Stadium and what would your dream job be? I wish I was a good enough baseball player to play professionally So what's one thing you still have from your childhood? Oh, I have this massive collection of thousands of things that I just can't Throw out because I'm really sentimental and so I keep a lot of memorabilia And so you're a little bit of a pack rat. I am a little bit of a pack rat Do you have a history team to take care of that problem? Well, they help me at work because I'm also a pack rat at work But they don't help me at home. No comment there and your life if your life was a song. What would the title be? Celebration, but there's a dance to go with that Who's a historical figure you'd love to have coffee with Charles Darwin. How do you think he takes his coffee? I bet he takes his coffee black How do you take your coffee? I take it with a little bit of milk and some Splenda Hmm, what do you love to have on your pizza black olives? Oh black olives nothing else If I'm allowed a second topping, I'll throw in mushrooms controversial So can you tell us a quick fun fact about genomics? The word genomics was coined in 1987. You would not find that word in the scientific or medical literature before 1987 and why is that? Because nobody had thought it up and nobody had put it into print Good morning. Hey, how are you? These days the way I decompress as I watch reruns of the Big Bang Theory and Shark Tank sort of mindless, but sort of fun Okay, thanks that means so what were you most surprised to learn working in genomics? Probably out of all the surprises in genomics was When we realized that the number of genes in the human genome is Actually smaller than the number of genes in most of the ingredients of a typical salad because those plants actually have more genes than we do Caesar salad. Oh any kind of salad What was the best part about working on the human genome project? I would say being part of something historic What was the hardest part about working on the human genome project? I would say realizing that You are part of science historic and with that comes an amazing and challenging amount of responsibility Speaking of which, how do you feel about starting a Twitter account? I enjoyed starting a Twitter account, although I Sort of realized it was probably a good thing to do because I was turning 60 years old and some of the other riskier things I could have done would like jumping out of airplane just didn't seem appropriate. Not yet, right? No, not ever. What career goals would you still like to accomplish? I would say the one thing I haven't figured out in my career is what I want to do when I grow up What is the field of genomics really like? Well, the field of genomics is a lot like the field of dreams except instead of corn plants There are these long double helices of DNA Like a field of genes like a field of genes Last question. So I have this pain in my leg. What do you think it is? I think it's a proof that you really do have feelings. Oh, well on that note. Thank you for your time today, dr. Green. Happy to do it. All right. Bye. Bye