Thomas Patrick Hopp was born in Seattle, Washington, and lived his earliest years in a housing project on the banks of the Duwamish River. Despite a tough start in life, good grades at West Seattle High School and the University of Washington plus a perfect score on the Graduate Record Examination gained him entry to the Ph.D. program in biochemistry at Cornell University Medical College. He studied protein chemistry there and genetic engineering at Rockefeller University and went on to help found the multi-billion-dollar Seattle biotechnology company, Immunex Corporation.