Thomas P. Hopp was born in Seattle, Washington, where he lived his earliest years in a housing project. Despite a tough start in life, good grades at West Seattle High School and the University of Washington as well as a perfect score on the Graduate Record Examination gained him entry to the Bio-chemistry Ph.D. program at Cornell University Medical Col-lege. He studied genetic engineering at Rockefeller University and went on to help found the multi-billion-dollar biotech-nology company, Immunex Corporation. He patented the gene for the immune system hormone, interleukin one, and advised the team that created Immunex's blockbuster arthritis drug, Enbrel. He also created the first commercially successful nano-technology device, a molecular handle called the Flag epitope tag. He worked with paleontologist Jack Horner, excavating bones of the nest-building duckbilled dinosaur Maiasaura. He published the brooding-to-flight hypothesis, in which wing feathers of birds developed first for nesting and then for flying. He plays guitar and bass, and has performed onstage with blues legend John Lee Hooker and rock supergroups The Kingsmen and The Drifters. He has lived in San Diego and on Manhattan Island. Nowadays he lives near Seattle.