Len A. Pennacchio is an American molecular biologist, the head of the Genetic Analysis Program and the Genomic Technologies Program at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California.[1]
Pennacchio did his undergraduate studies at Sonoma State University and then went on to graduate studies at Stanford University, receiving a Ph.D. in genetics in 1998. He became a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1999, and joined the Joint Genome Institute in 2003. He retains his Lawrence Berkeley affiliation as well.[1]
Pennacchio contributed to the human genome project with an analysis of human chromosome 16.[2] His research has also exploredgene regulation,[3] the genetic basis of differences in body shape between different individuals,[4] conserved sequences in the genome,[5] andconnections between junk DNA and heart disease.[6]
In 2008, Genome Technology magazine named him as one of 30 promising young researchers in their annual "Tomorrow's PIs" edition.[7]