Advisory Board

Dr. Dan Stoicescu

The New York Times article Gene Map Becomes a Luxury Item said

On a cold day in January, Dan Stoicescu, a millionaire living in Switzerland, became the second person in the world to buy the full sequence of his own genetic code.
 
He is also among a relatively small group of individuals who could afford the $350,000 price tag.
 
Mr. Stoicescu is the first customer of Knome, a Cambridge-based company that has promised to parse his genetic blueprint by spring.
 
Scientists have so far unraveled only a handful of complete human genomes, all financed by governments, foundations, and corporations in the name of medical research. But as the cost of genome sequencing goes from stratospheric to merely very expensive, it is piquing the interest of a new clientele.
 
“I’d rather spend my money on my genome than a Bentley or an airplane,” said Mr. Stoicescu, 56, a biotechnology entrepreneur who retired two years ago after selling his company. He says he will check discoveries about genetic disease risk against his genome sequence daily, “like a stock portfolio.”


 
Dan Stoicescu, Ph.D. earned his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry. He was born in Romania and lived in the United States in the early 1990s before founding Sindan, an oncology products company based in Romania that he ran for 15 years.
 
He is Honorary Consul of Finland which involves him in several philanthropic and charitable activities, and is also trustee at the Innerspace Foundation.
 
Dan has published more than 50 research papers focusing mainly on oncology. They include Synthesis of 4-aryloxy-7-nitrobenzofurazan derivatives from 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzofurazan and various phenoxide anions (including pharmaceuticals) in the presence of crown ethers and Determination of the 5-fluorouracil and N1(2’-furanidyl)uracil in the presence of tegafur by zero-crossing first derivative spectrometry. He holds patents Novel inhibitors of folic acid-dependent enzymes, Use of condensed pyrimidine derivatives for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and Condensed pyrimidine derivatives as inhibitors of folic acid-dependent enzymes.
 
Now living with his wife and 12-year-old son in a village outside Geneva, Dan describes himself as a transhumanist who believes that life can be extended through nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, as well as diet and lifestyle adaptations.