Dennis Kleid was one of the first scientists hired at Genentech and was a senior scientist and senior patent agent by the time he left the company in 2010. Kleid obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968 and his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1972. He did postdoctoral work at MIT and Harvard before taking a position at the Stanford Research Institute. He was hired as a molecular biologist at Genentech in 1978, and he worked there as a scientist until 1986, when he joined the legal department as a patent agent. In this interview, Kleid discusses his education and pre-Genentech research and his experience at Genentech in both the scientific and legal sides of the company.
