These photographs were taken of Dr. Atallah when he was a premedical student, working on The Human Genome Project at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. His main focus was mapping the genome after it had been sequenced. Robotic DNA extraction was a crucial part of improving the speed and throughput of DNA sequencing. Although only a pre-med student, he was able to developed a method to double the robotic throughput so that the genome could be sequenced and mapped at a much faster rate.
Below (top photo): S. Atallah standing in front of the first generation robot used for DNA extraction. Below (bottom photo): S. Atallah stands before the next generation robot, which he redesigned to double DNA throughput.
