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George Church (geneticist)

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George McDonald Church
George Church during the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues 8-Jul-2010
Born (1954-08-28) August 28, 1954 (age 70)
MacDill Air Force Base, Florida
NationalityUnited States
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materDuke University
Harvard University
AwardsBower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science of the Franklin Institute
Scientific career
FieldsGenetics
InstitutionsHarvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
ThesisGenetic Elements within Yeast Mitochondrial and Mouse Immunoglobulin Introns (1984)
Doctoral advisorWalter Gilbert
Websitearep.med.harvard.edu/gmc

George McDonald Church (born August 28, 1954) is an American geneticist, molecular engineer, and chemist. He is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, and founding core member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He is widely regarded as a pioneer in personal genomics and synthetic biology. He is married to fellow Harvard Medical School faculty in genetics, Ting Wu.

Training and career

Church attended Phillips Academy from 1968 to 1972, then completed undergraduate BA degrees in Zoology and Chemistry in two years at Duke University. During this time he began working with Sung-Hou Kim, continuing this work into graduate school at Duke (and flunking out), while co-authoring five research publications on models for DNA-protein interactions and the first 3D structure of a folded nucleic acid. He then moved to Harvard University, completing his Ph.D. in 1984 for work with Walter Gilbert on Genetic Elements within Yeast Mitochondrial and Mouse Immunoglobulin Introns. In 1984 he was one of the first employees at Biogen and then an LSRF fellow at UCSF with Gail R. Martin. He joined the Harvard Medical School Faculty in 1986. He is a senior editor for Molecular Systems Biology. Church has co-authored more than 290 publications and 50 patents. He is director of the U.S. Department of Energy Center on Bioenergy Technology at Harvard and director of the National Institutes of Health (NHGRI) Center of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS) at Harvard.

Genome sequencing and interpretation technologies

With Walter Gilbert, Church published the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984. Described in that publication were the cyclic application of fluids to a solid phase alternating with imaging, plus avoidance of bacterial cloning, strategies that are still used in today's dominant Next-Generation Sequencing technologies. These technologies began to have an impact on genome-scale sequencing 2005. Church also helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984. He invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and barcode tags. Technology transfer from his Harvard laboratory of automated sequencing & software to Genome Therapeutics Corp. resulted in the first bacterial genome sequence and first commercial genome (the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori) in 1994. Church was also co-inventor of nanopore sequencing in 1995, which is still not yet commercially available, but may be getting closer.

To aid in the interpretation and sharing of genomes, Church, in 2005, initiated the Personal Genome Project (PGP), which provides the world’s only open-access human genome and trait data sets. Eight trios (mother, father, and child) from the Personal Genome Project are in the process of being chosen to act as the primary genome standards (Reference Materials) for the NIST+FDA genomeinabottle.org program.

Image of George Church from an Autodesk 3D image set made as part of his participation in the Personal Genome Project.

Synthetic biology and genome engineering

He has co-developed numerous "genome engineering" technologies since 1997 via either general homologous recombination (recA and lambda-red) or via sequence-specific nucleases. Since 2004, his team has developed use of DNA array (aka DNA chip) synthesizers for combinatorial libraries and assembling large genome segments. He co-developed Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE) and use of CRISPR for engineering a variety of genomes ranging from yeast to human. His laboratory's use of CRISPR in human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPS) is the latest contender for precise gene therapy.

His team is the first to tackle a genome-scale change in the genetic code. This was done in a 4.7 million basepair genome of an industrially useful microbe (E. coli) with the goal of making a safer and more productive strain; this strain uses non-proteinogenic amino acids in proteins and is metabolically and genetically isolated from other species.

He has co-invented several novel uses for DNA, including detectors for dark matter -- Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), anti-cancer "nano-robots", and strategies for digital data storage that are over a million times denser than conventional disk drives. Together with polymerase, DNA can be used to sense and store variation in photons, nucleotides, or ions.

The BRAIN initiative

He was part of a team of six who, in a 2012 scientific commentary, proposed a Brain Activity Map, later named BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). They outlined a variety of specific experimental techniques that might be used to achieve what they termed a "functional connectome", as well as new technologies that will have to be developed in the course of the project, including wireless, minimally invasive methods to detect and manipulate neuronal activity, either utilizing microelectronics or synthetic biology. In one such proposed method, enzymatically produced DNA would serve as a "ticker tape record" of neuronal activity.

Technology transfer and translational impact

Church has co-founded 9 companies, including Warp Drive Bio (natural products, 2011, with Greg Verdine and James Wells), Alacris (cancer systems therapeutics, 2010, with Hans Lehrach, Bernhard Herrmann, and Shahid Imran), Knome (human genomics, 2007, with Jorge Conde and Sundar Subramaniam), Pathogenica (microbe and viral NGS diagnostics, 2009, with Yemi Adesokan), AbVitro (immunomes, 2010, with Francois Vigneault), Gen9 Bio (synthetic biology, 2009, with Joseph Jacobson and Drew Endy), EnEvolv (Genome Engineering), Joule Unlimited (SolarFuels, 2007, with Noubar Afeyan and David Berry), and LS9 (green chemistry, 2005, with Chris Somerville, Jay Keasling, Vinod Khosla, Noubar Afeyan, and David Berry)

He has participated in technology development, licensing patents and advising most of the Next-Generation Sequencing companies, including Complete Genomics, Life Technologies, Illumina, Danaher Corporation, Roche Diagnostics, Pacific Biosciences, Genia, and Nabsys.

Bioethics, education, and public policy

Support of open consent

Church spearheaded the concept and implementation of open access sequencing hardware and shareable human medical data. He has noted the potential for re-identification of human research participants and the tendency for consent forms to be opaque – proposing an alternative "open consent" mechanism. He has participated in the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, cautioning about the risk of synthetic DNA and proposing risk-reduction via licensing and surveillance. His laboratory has a major bio-safety engineering focus.

George Church with a molecular model of a ribosome at TED 2010, picture by Steve Jurvetson.

Support of open education

He has been an early advocate of online, open education since 2002. He is advisor to the Personal Genetics Education Project and has spent a day teaching at The Jemicy School. He has championed citizen science, especially in the fields of synthetic biology and personal genomics. Since 2008, his team has been hosting an annual Genomes, Environments and Traits (GET) Conference with free online videos.

Support of vegan lifestyle

Church follows a vegan lifestyle for reasons concerning health, environmental and moral issues surrounding factory farming. When asked about his dietary choice Church replied,

"I've been vegan off-and-on since 1974 when I was inspired by participating in an MIT nutritional study, and quite strictly since 2004. My four reasons have been: medical (cholesterol in fish & dairy), energy conservation (up to 20-fold impact), cruelty ("organic" animals are deprived of medicines that humans use), and risks of spreading pathogens (not just the flu)...Veganism is an issue for which personal and global love of life, health and wealth align. It's a pity to lose parts of our humanity and planet just due to a lack of recipes."

In popular culture

In October 2012, Church published a book that he wrote with Ed Regis entitled Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. This was on a top ten Science book list. He has participated in over 500 news interviews and 50 videos including TED, TEDx, TEDMED, PopSci, EG, and popular television programs including The Colbert Report, Charlie Rose, Faces of America, and PBS NOVA. He is a regular contributor to Edge.org publications and videos.

In response to a question from Der Spiegel, Church speculated that it could be technically possible to make a Neanderthal by reconstructing the DNA of a Neanderthal and modifying living human cells accordingly. Other media such as The Daily Mail fabricated a "Want-Ad" and quote for Church as having said: "Now I need an adventurous female human." Church pointed out that he was not working on such a project.

In the context of the Personal Genome Project, journalists at Forbes and Wired have noted Church's openness about his health issues, including dyslexia, narcolepsy, and high cholesterol (one of the motivations for his vegan diet).

Honors

In 2011, Church was awarded the Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science of the Franklin Institute (awarded once every 7 years in Life Sciences). Other honors include the American Society for Microbiology Promega Biotechnology Research Award in 2009, the Triennial International Steven Hoogendijk Award in 2010, the Scientific American Top 50 twice (for “Designing artificial life” in 2005 and "The $1000 genome" in 2006). Newsweek picked Church for their 2008 “Power of Ideas” recognition in the category of Medicine (for the Personal Genome Project). In September 2010, Dr Church was honored for his work in Genetics with the Mass High Tech All-Star Award.

He was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences (in 2011) and the National Academy of Engineering (in 2012).

References

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  29. ^ Mali P, Yang L, Esvelt KM, Aach J, Guell M, DiCarlo JE, Norville JE, Church GM (Feb 15, 2013). "RNA-guided human genome engineering via Cas9". Science. 339 (6121): 823–6. doi:10.1126/science.1232033. PMC 3712628. PMID 23287722.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  30. Tian J, Gong H, Sheng N, Zhou X, Gulari E, Gao X, Church G (2004). "Accurate Multiplex Gene Synthesis from Programmable DNA Chips". Nature. 432: 1050–4. doi:10.1038/nature03151. PMID 15616567.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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  35. Robert Lee Hotz (16 Aug 2012). "Future of Data: Encoded in DNA". Wall Street Journal.
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  58. "Spiegel responds to brouhaha over neanderthal clone". Der Spiegel. 23 Jan 2013.
  59. Herper, Matthew (27 April 2009). "Going To Church". Forbes Magazine.
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  63. "International Steven Hoogendijk Award". 2010.
  64. "The Power of Ideas". Newsweek. 19 Dec 2008.
  65. "All-Star Awards". Mass High Tech. 2010-09-08. Retrieved 2010-09-08.
  66. "National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected". National Academies. 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
  67. "National Academy of Engineering Elects 66 Members and 10 Foreign Associates". National Academies. 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2012.

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