Background
Stefánsson, Kári was born on April 6, 1949 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
educator neurologist genomics company executive
Stefánsson, Kári was born on April 6, 1949 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Doctor of Medicine, University Iceland.
He has pioneered the monitoring of the deoxyribonucleic acid of a large fraction of an entire country"s population leading to a complete genealogy of its native inhabitants. This has led to the discovery of the neuregulin-1 gene"s association with schizophrenia
He received his Doctor of Medicine in 1976 and his Doctor medical. in 1986 from the University of Iceland. He went to the University of Chicago and trained in neurology, neuropathology, and neurosciences and served on the faculty there for 10 years, from 1983 until 1993.
Thereafter, he was a professor of neurology, neuropathology and neuroscience at Harvard University, from 1993 until 1997.
Concurrently at that time, he was director of neuropathology at Boston"s Beth Israel Hospital, from 1993 to 1996. Kári Stefánsson founded DeCode Genetics in 1996 in the midst of concerns about privacy related to a large centralized healthcare database and the commercial use of health information and genetics.
As of 2003, nearly 100,000 of 285,000 Icelandic citizens have consented and given blood to DeCode Genetics for analysis. The process has linked the country’s genetics profiles with medical records and genealogy information.
This has led to the discovery of the neuregulin-1 gene"s association with schizophrenia, a condition that Stefánsson’s brother has.
In 2007, his compensation was $662,296. He was on the Time 100 list in 2007. Although the company was bankrupt in 2009, it resumed its data collection in 2014 after it was purchased by Amgen, by sending out another 100,000 envelopes to add to the 120,000 samples already taken.
Kári Stefánsson is the principal villain of Óttar M. Norðfjörð"s satirical 2007 book Jón Ásgeir & afmælisveislan (: Sögur, 2007), in which he creates a female version of Davíð Oddsson from a sample of Davíð"s hair.
He was also in the documentary, Bobby Fischer versus the rest of the world. (Himself).