George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a founder of LS9. Dr. Church directs one of the first funded genome technology centers since 1987 - now a DOE GTL systems biology center focused on photosynthesis and biofuels. He is director of an NIH Center for Excellence in Genome Science and co-founder of the Whitehead genome center - now the Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT. He is senior editor of Nature-EMBO Molecular Systems Biology. His PhD from Harvard in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology with Wally Gilbert included the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984. He helped initiate the Human Genome Project while a Research Scientist at newly-formed Biogen Inc. He has also pioneered genome engineering, systems and synthetic biology, and concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, with a record of accomplishment in developing and transferring new technologies to over 20 companies - leading e.g., to the first commercial genome sequence at GTC (H. pylori in 1994) and to "next-generation" sequencing technologies, including Agencourt-Applied Biosystems, Solexa-Illumina, 454-Roche, Helicos, Complete Genomics, and Intelligent Bio-Systems.
Dr. Church helped start Codon Devices focused on synthetic biology and Genomatica focused on metabolic systems engineering. He holds degrees from Duke University in Chemistry and Zoology and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Harvard University. |