George Church

Church grew up in Clearwater, Florida, and at age 10 built a computer from parts bought at an electrical-supply store. His adoptive father, a physician, later sent him to Phillips Academy in Andover, which he described as “walking into Oz.”⁠[1]

Church graduated from Duke University about three years before arriving at HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 1977. He then entered graduate programs in biochemistry and virology at Duke and “flunked out of both”; despite having published five scientific papers, he was dismissed, and it was at Duke that he came to see DNA as a stream of information.⁠[1]

Church entered the doctoral program in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and received his Ph.D. in 1984. His doctoral work included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing and barcoding.⁠[1][2]

The first direct genomic sequencing method he developed in 1984 led to the first genome sequence, that of the human pathogen H. pylori; that year he also helped initiate the Human Genome Project.⁠[3]

As of early 2004 Church was a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Lipper Center for Computational Genetics, and had invented a series of methods for automating the reading of genetic code, the latest of which he called “polony” technology.⁠[1]

In 2005 Church helped initiate the Personal Genome Project.⁠[3]

In 2011 Church received the Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science from the Franklin Institute.⁠[3]

On February 26, 2019, Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry (a16z) released the a16z Podcast episode “a16z Podcast: What’s in the Water at the George Church Lab?”, which was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on April 1, 2019. Church spoke with Jorge CondeJorge CondeJorge Conde is a biotechnology entrepreneur and a general partner on the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).Open the full entry, a general partner on a16z’s Bio + Health team, who had co-founded a company with Church out of the Church lab.⁠[4][5]

The conversation covered the state of CRISPR, including the news of the CRISPR babies in China, the broader cultural implications of the technology, and what it takes to move an idea from science fiction to the lab and then to reality.⁠[4]

Church is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, and founding core faculty and lead of synthetic biology at the Wyss Institute; he is also director of the U.S. Department of Energy Technology Center and of the NIH Center of Excellence in Genomic Science.⁠[3]

His research covers directed evolution of molecules, polymers and whole genomes, with applications in regenerative medicine and chemical bio-production, and recently technologies for synthesizing whole genes and engineering whole genomes; on his lab home page he also lists barcoding, genome editing, DNA writing and recoding, protein engineering, tissue reprogramming, aging and gene therapy, and states that he co-initiated the BRAIN Initiative.⁠[3][2]

He also invented homologous recombination methods and array DNA synthesizers. Church is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.⁠[3][2]

On his lab home page Church states that his work resulted in the founding of application-based companies in medical diagnostics (Knome/PierianDx, Alacris, Nebula, Veritas) and in synthetic biology and therapeutics (AbVitro/Juno, Gen9, enEvolv, Zymergen, Warpdrive, Ginkgo, Editas, eGenesis). Editas (gene therapy), Gen9bio (synthetic DNA) and Veritas Genetics (full human genome sequencing) are based on his innovations.⁠[2][3]

Personal website: https://arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

Wyss Institute: Official website: https://wyss.harvard.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]