Leland Hartwell was born on the 30th of October 1939. During his childhood, he was an avid collector of bugs, butterflies, lizards, snakes and spiders. His major break was when he took the entrance exam on California Institute of Technology and he fell in love with the environment of real sciences. He graduated in 1961 and went to MIT for graduate school and he decided to work on gene regulation. He then became a professor in University of California and in the University of Washington.