Robert Lanza, M.D. is a world renowned scientist who has been touted as the “Bill Gates of Science”. But before his rise to medical and scientific stardom, he was an underprivileged student who came from a brood where only two of his four siblings went to high school.

Dr. Robert Lanza gives credit to their neighbor, Barbara O’Donnell, for what he has become today. She was the one who taught him about Science and even arranged for him to attend the honors Biology class which caused a major disagreement since this was only open to the section A division class. This prompted the young Lanza to prove others wrong by always making good his science projects. This led to his experimentation on altering the genetic makeup of a white animal to make it black. His successful research in changing the genetics of a chicken had come to the attention of the Harvard Medical School when he came to the university with the results. This was the first work that he was known for that made him famous as a young man with a brilliant mind at a tender age of 14.

Robert Lanza then pursued his BA and MD degrees at the University of Pennsylvania where he obtained a scholarship as well as the Benjamin Franklin scholarship. He was also a Fulbright scholar and worked with the greatest thinkers of our time. Today, he is known for his contributions in the field of medicine. He is currently working as the Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology. All of this has been possible with the help and encouragement of a great teacher. Dr. Lanza now gives back by being an adjunct professor at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.