Bob and Pat Herbold's vision of a cancer-free future inspired them to fund the Hutchinson Center's innovative computer program to advance early detection of cancer

By BRAD BROBERG

Bob Herbold and Ambassador Pat Herbold.

Their resumés reflect a lifetime of leadership and achievement in law, business and politics, yet Bob and Pat Herbold's $1.5 million gift to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reflects the couple's solid academic foundation in science.

As they learn more about the Hutchinson Center's vision of combining biology and technology to beat cancer, the Herbolds can visualize the possibilities … and the payoff.

With their recent gift to the Hutchinson Center's new program in computational biology and bioinformatics — now known as the Herbold Computational Biology Program — the Herbolds are making a major contribution to a promising new arena of medical research.

"Early detection is critical in cancer treatment, and it looks like computational analysis and modeling of the molecular basis of human blood and tissue may yield new approaches to identify early cancer activity," Bob said. "Now that's a big deal!"

The Herbolds, who live in Bellevue, Wash., and have three grown children and five grandchildren, both studied science in college — Bob has degrees in math and computer science while Pat has a degree in chemistry — yet ultimately they pursued careers outside the lab.

"The work they're doing at the Hutchinson Center is cutting-edge and very exciting," Pat said. "If I had stayed in science, it's the kind of thing I would have loved doing."

Bob is the former executive vice president and chief operating officer at Microsoft, where he worked from 1994 until 2003. Before that, he spent 26 years at Procter & Gamble, rising to senior vice president of advertising and information services. He currently is managing director of Herbold Group LLC, consulting on eliminating bureaucracy and improving profitability. He recently authored a book (published by Doubleday) titled "The Fiefdom Syndrome," which focuses on the turf battles that undermine careers and companies — and how to overcome them. He also serves on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Pat was recently appointed United States ambassador to Singapore. Early in her career she worked for several years as a chemist before earning a law degree. She spent many years as vice president and chief counsel for Bank One. She also served as a prosecuting attorney, city council member and mayor in suburban Cincinnati.

"We have been very blessed with financial success, and we feel that sharing that success in whatever ways we can is something that we want to do," Pat said. "Computational biology and bioinformatics has the potential to take the work they're doing at the Hutchinson Center to a whole new level."

The Herbolds' generous support will help the Center build one of the best computational biology programs in the world, said Dr. Lee Hartwell, president and director of the Hutchinson Center. "It provides critical resources to accelerate the development of the program's infrastructure and helps us recruit and retain the best and brightest minds in the field." The Herbolds were inspired to support the Hutchinson Center by their personal experiences with cancer — both of Bob's parents died of the disease as did Pat's mother — as well as by their appreciation for the breakthroughs in cancer diagnosis, prevention and treatment that are on the horizon. Their gift will provide funding for the staff and technology needed to mine the data from the human genome, human proteome and other molecular research.

"The sheer size of the analysis of DNA to correlate it with cancer activity requires computers of monumental capabilities," Bob said. "But with computing power continually advancing, that's going to get nothing but easier over time."

Computational biology and bio-informatics are two distinct yet related responses to the same problem — how to process the enormous number of variables involved in identifying the molecular clues to cancer. Bioinformatics involves developing the tools needed to analyze massive amounts of data from biological experiments. Computational biology involves the use of mathematics and statistics to generate new data based on experiments that incorporate existing data, a process that saves both time and money over "wet lab" investigations.

The Herbolds can't think of a better way to advance those causes than supporting the Hutchinson Center. "The thing that impresses us most about the Hutchinson Center," Bob said, "is the talent of the people and their clear, clear focus on the goals of the organization."

Computer revolution

The sequencing of the human genome ensures that cancer can't hide its secrets forever. However, like looking for specific specks of sand at the beach, finding each secret demands sifting through a mind-boggling — and time-consuming — expanse of molecular variables. The enormous challenge has given rise to a new field of science: computational biology.

The Hutchinson Center has established computational biology — along with the related field of bioinformatics — as the newest of its 18 research programs. The Herbold Computational Biology Program is led by Dr. Robert Gentleman, who the Center recruited last year to build the program.

By using technology to marry the disciplines of biology and mathematics/statistics, the program promises to improve the productivity, speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness of cancer-research experiments. This will revolutionize the world's understanding of cancer and accelerate the flow of lifesaving discoveries. "We have to move in this direction if we want to be successful," Gentleman said.

Before coming to the Hutchinson Center last December, Gentleman was an associate professor in the Department of Biostatistical Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University. He has authored 30 software packages for statistical analyses and computational biology including R, a widely used language and suite of software for statistical computing.

Bioinformatics and computational biology attack the same problem — how to process the oceans of data involved in searching for the molecular clues to cancer — but from different directions. Bioinformatics involves developing tools to analyze the large sets of data generated by "wet lab" experiments. Computational biology involves conducting experiments "in silico" — using powerful computers and sophisticated software/mathematical modeling to perform virtual experiments based on data that already exists.

Just as a flight simulator is no substitute for actually flying, computational biology is not intended to replace laboratory research. Rather, the goal is to make laboratory research more efficient by eliminating numerous preliminary steps. "Computational biology offers a way for us to learn enough about a problem to guide decisions about the most critical experiments to perform in the wet lab," Gentleman said.

For example, even if experimenting with simple yeast cells, a scientist seeking insight into the combinations of genetic mutations that can lead to cancer would need to create and analyze millions of different strains of yeast. "A better — and certainly more economical approach — would be for the lab scientist to set up a smaller-scale experiment to provide some preliminary results for a computational biologist to work with," Gentleman said. "That information would be used to test the approach on a larger scale using a computer, which in turn would generate data about which combinations or how many might be the most important to focus on in the lab."

The Herbold Computational Biology Program will support numerous research endeavors ranging from DNA analysis to systems biology to disease modeling. As additional faculty join the program, they not only will conduct research of their own, but also will collaborate closely with members of the Hutchinson Center's laboratory divisions in a rising tide of interdisciplinary research. "We hope that this program will catalyze many new and productive research interactions," Gentleman said.