Dorothee Kern’s path from bas­ket­ball star to founder of bil­lion-dol­lar biotech(s?); Five Prime Ther­a­peu­tics hands the reins to Genen­tech vet

I as­sure you that I did not plan to do this. I want­ed to write a lit­tle sto­ry about pro­teins and can­cer, nu­clear mag­net­ic imag­ing and a sci­en­tist turned en­tre­peneur of bil­lion-dol­lar biotechs. Maybe a touch on com­mu­nist East Ger­many. A sprin­kle on her (what I as­sumed had been) past life as a world-class ath­lete. I did not — would not — plan on writ­ing a sto­ry about some­one suc­ceed­ing “on-the-court and off-the-court,” a sto­ry held to­geth­er by what I as­sumed would have to be forced par­al­lels be­tween bas­ket­ball and sci­ence.

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