7. Bruce Stillman, Ph.D.

The work that the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory president and director of its Cancer Center has done on cell division has formed the building blocks for understanding diseases, particularly cancer, and earned him the title of “DNA Sleuth.” Succeeding Nobel laureate and DNA pioneer James Watson, Ph.D., who stepped down last October after making headlines with his suggestion that black people were genetically less intelligent than whites, Stillman has been on the receiving end of some of the highest honors that can be given to a scientist, his most recent being the Curtin Medal, an internationally recognized honor awarded by his native Australia for excellence in medical research. Stillman continues to do award-winning research on DNA replication, while overseeing more than 1,000 employees of the lab and keeping Long Island on the forefront of cutting-edge DNA research.