George Church (geneticist)
American geneticist / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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George McDonald Church (born August 28, 1954) is an American geneticist, molecular engineer, chemist, serial entrepreneur, and pioneer in personal genomics and synthetic biology.[10] He is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.[2][6][11]
George Church | |
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Born | George McDonald Church (1954-08-28) August 28, 1954 (age 69)[1] |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | |
Known for | Synthetic Biology, Woolly Mammoth Revival Project |
Spouse | Ting Wu |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Chemistry[6] |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Genetic Elements within Yeast Mitochondrial and Mouse Immunoglobulin Introns (1984) |
Doctoral advisor | Walter Gilbert[7] |
Doctoral students | |
Other notable students | |
Website | arep |
Through his Harvard lab Church has co-founded around 50 biotech companies.[12][13][14] In 2018, the Church lab at Harvard spun off 16 biotech companies in one year.[13] The Church lab works on research projects that are distributed in diverse areas of modern biology like developmental biology, neurobiology, info processing, medical genetics, aging, genomics, gene therapy, diagnostics, chemistry & bioengineering, space biology & space genetics, and ecosystem.[15] Research and technology developments at the Church lab have impacted or made direct contributions to nearly all "next-generation sequencing (NGS)" methods and companies.[16]
In 2017, Time magazine listed him in Time 100, the list of 100 most influential people in the world.[5][17][18] In 2022, he was featured among the most influential people in biopharma by Fierce Pharma,[19] and was listed among the top 8 famous geneticists of all time in human history.[20] As of January 2023[update], Church serves as a member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Board of Sponsors.[21]