Location

MIT Media Lab, 3rd Floor Atrium

Description

George Church is professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, director of the NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science, and director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world's only open-access information on human Genomic, Environmental & Trait data (GET). His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing and barcoding. These led to the first commercial genome sequence (pathogen, Helicobacter pylori) in 1994. His innovations in essentially all of the "next generation" genome sequencing (CGI, Life, Illumina, nanopore) methods and companies, and his oligo synthesis plus cell/tissue engineering, resulted in founding additional application-based companies spanning fields of medical diagnostics (Knome, Alacris, AbVitro, Pathogenica) and synthetic biology and therapeutics (LS9, Joule, Gen9, Editas, Egenesis, WarpDrive), as well as new privacy, biosafety, and biosecurity policies. His honors include election to NAS and NAE; he is also a Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 330 papers and one book, Regenesis, and holds 60 patents.