sentences:  Dr George A. Bray, a renowned obesity researcher, was recruited to be the first executive director of the center and under his leadership the center reached its present status in the scientific world.Today, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center houses almost 600 employees, 14 research laboratories, 17 core service laboratories, an inpatient and outpatient clinic, two metabolic chambers, a research kitchen, an administrative area, more than $20 million in technologically advanced equipment, and a team of over 80 scientists and physicians with specialties such as molecular biology, genomics and proteomics, neuroanatomy, exercise physiology, biochemistry, psychology, endocrinology, biostatistics and electrophysiology.One of the former employees was the late state legislator Leonard J. Chabert from Terrebonne Parish, the namesake of the Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma.