Interviewee: David Goeddel. David Goeddel talks about what it was like to work at Genetech during its early days. (DNAi Location: Manipulation > Production > Players > David Goeddel > Early days at Genentech)

The early focus was completely on insulin, when I joined it was clear that was my project. There were going to be other scientists joining, or at least that's what I was told, I didn't realize yet that it was still going to be awhile before they got recruited and joined. And Genentech did not have a lab, so they had a warehouse that was rented or leased in the corner of a larger warehouse, and a lab was being built but that wasn't going to be ready until probably June of '78, and we wanted to start working right away. So when I joined, the first thing was, well let's get ready, we need some equipment. So it was ordering, doing every possible thing, picking up dry ice every day, going somewhere else to get distilled water, all the things we didn't have in the lab, getting set up to work.

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