EXHIBIT 99.2


            DR. TOM VASICEK TO LEAD LYNX BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS
- Fortifies senior management team and pushes commercialization of MPSS(TM) and
Protein ProFiler(TM) -

HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 17, 2002 - Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX)
announced today the addition of Thomas J. Vasicek, Ph.D., as Vice President,
Business Development. Dr. Vasicek joins Lynx as a member of the senior
management team and will lead the business development efforts for Massively
Parallel Signature Sequencing, or MPSS(TM), and Protein ProFiler(TM). Dr.
Vasicek brings to Lynx considerable technical and business expertise in the
field of gene expression analysis. In his prior roles, he has developed business
and marketing platforms that have captured the interest of customers in the
pharmaceutical, agricultural and biotechnology industries, as well as
investigators working in academic research laboratories.

Dr. Vasicek managed an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Millennium
Pharmaceuticals to develop and use DNA microarray technologies for high
throughput target discovery and drug development. In this capacity, he also
played an important role on the teams that developed and managed several of
Millennium's alliances with large pharmaceutical and agricultural companies. He
was then recruited to the Corning Advanced Life Sciences Products Division,
where as the Director, Commercial Technology, he managed the effort that
established Corning's commercial DNA microarray capabilities and completed
several major collaborations. Dr. Vasicek continued to expand his business
expertise as Chief Scientific Officer at LabSeek Scientific Collaborative. In
this capacity, he developed exclusive partnerships with several Fortune 100
companies. Coupled with his experience in business, Dr. Vasicek comes with
formal training in chemistry and molecular biology at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (B.S.), Harvard Medical School (Ph.D.), and Princeton
University (Postdoctoral).

"We believe that Tom brings with him a wealth of experience in the business of
expression profiling, and are very excited to have him on the Lynx team," said
Kevin P. Corcoran, Lynx's President and Chief Executive Officer. "He clearly
understands the needs in the marketplace for the MPSS(TM) and Protein
ProFiler(TM) technologies, particularly with potential customers that have an
interest in systems biology research. We anticipate that Tom will broaden our
customer base for these technologies in the business and academic research
communities."

Lynx is a leader in the development and application of novel technologies for
the discovery of gene expression patterns important to the pharmaceutical,
biotechnology and agricultural industries. These technologies are based on the
Megaclone(TM) technology, Lynx's unique and proprietary cloning procedure, which
transforms a sample containing millions of DNA molecules into one made up of
millions of micro-beads, each of which carries approximately 100,000 copies of
one of the DNA molecules in the sample. Megaclone(TM) technology and MPSS(TM)
together provide comprehensive and quantitative digital gene expression data
important to modern systems biology research. Lynx is also developing a
proteomics technology, Protein ProFiler(TM), which is expected to provide
high-resolution analysis of complex mixtures of proteins from cells or tissues.
For more information, visit Lynx's web site at www.lynxgen.com.

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, including statements
related to Lynx's ability to attract and retain key personnel, the future
effectiveness of the Company's employees, the Company's business strategy and
the expansion of the Company's commercial applications of its technologies. Any
statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical
fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as "believes,"
"anticipates," "plans," "predicts," "expects," "estimates," "intends," "will,"
"continue," "may," "potential," "should," "confident" and similar expressions
are intended to identify forward-looking statements. There are a number of
important factors that could cause the results of Lynx to differ materially from
those indicated by these forward-looking statements, including, among others,
risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including its
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2001. Lynx does not
undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.