12. Bruce Stillman

From a bucolic setting overlooking Cold Spring Harbor, Dr. Bruce Stillman heads one of the most important research labs in the country, if not the world, in pursuing advances in molecular biology, neuroscience, genetics, autism and cancer treatment. To Stillman, science matters profoundly in the survival of humanity. With the economic development initiative Accelerate Long Island, he’s partnered with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University to promote high-tech development here in a range of fields. He also helped found the New York Genome Center, an international consortium of academic, medical and industry leaders based in Manhattan. A native of Melbourne, Australia, Stillman started at the Laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow in 1979. Somehow he still finds time to keep his hand in the lab. He’s been studying how DNA is copied within cells before they divide, hoping to shed light on how rare genetic disorders occur, and may eventually be prevented. Under his guidance, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has become an incubator for more than 25 biotechnology startups and a key player in the biomedical sector of the Long Island economy. Last spring, Stillman launched the $75 million Center for Therapeutics Research to develop drugs to fight genetic diseases. The new facility involved renovating the Demerec Laboratory, built in 1953, where four of Cold Spring Harbor Lab’s eight Nobel Prize winners did their groundbreaking research. Once it’s completed next year, the center should be home to 30 new scientific staff and 25 world-class scientists. With Stillman leading the way, another Nobel Prize could be coming to Cold Spring Harbor in the near future.