George M. Church (molecular biologist)
George McDonald Church (born August 28, 1954 , MacDill Air Force Base , Tampa , Florida ) is an American molecular biologist at Harvard University .
Church was able to make a significant contribution to genome research. He developed techniques for DNA sequencing and has the fact that he, the 2006 Personal Genome Project has launched the development of the field of personal genomics (personal genomics) transported. He was also able to give important impulses to synthetic biology .
Life
Church was the child of a military pilot and racing car driver and author, but was adopted by his mother's future husband, a doctor.
Church received a bachelor's degree in zoology and chemistry from Duke University in 1974 , but had to leave the university in 1976 because of poor performance without the desired Ph.D. left in biochemistry. In 1984, he earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University. in biochemistry and molecular biology . As a postdoctoral fellow he worked for the Biogen Research Corporation and with Gail R. Martin at the University of California, San Francisco , before receiving a first professorship (Assistant Professor) at Harvard Medical School in 1986 . In 1992 he became an associate professor , in 1998 he was given a full professorship and is now (as of 2014) Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. From 1986 to 1997 he also conducted research for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
Church is married to genetics professor Ting Wu ; the couple has a daughter.
Act
Church originally dealt with chemistry and crystallography . From 1980 he developed concepts for DNA sequencing , which, however, did not lead to commercial application until 1994 with the advancement of automation technology with the sequencing of the genome of Helicobacter pylori . Other applications and companies that were developed or founded by him were Fluorescent In Situ Sequencing (FISSeq, 1999), ABI-SOLiD (2006), the open source sequencer Polonator (2007), the company Complete Genomics ( NASDAQ - traded, 2008) and the end-customer- oriented companies Knome and 23andMe .
His work with the organic biosynthesis of oligonucleotides and their homologous reconstruction led him to research on the synthesis of mini- proteins and the photosynthetic production of alkanes from carbon dioxide in the 1990s .
Church emphasizes the need to develop new ethical principles and safety considerations when introducing new technologies. The construction of new genomes that contain a genetic code that would be insensitive to viruses and other genetic changes, for example, is one of them. Considerations of this kind led him to start the Personal Genome Project , which links human genomics with environmental data and biographical characteristics and makes this data available as open access with the help of an ethics committee .
Recent work deals with the relationship between microbiomics and immune response .
Church has (as of 2014) more than 330 scientific publications and holds more than 60 patents. Since 2016 Thomson Reuters has counted him among the favorites for a Nobel Prize ( Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates ) due to the number of his citations .
Awards (selection)
- 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science
- 2011 member of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2012 member of the National Academy of Engineering
Web links
- George Church and George M. Church Lab at Harvard University (harvard.edu)
- George M. Church Personal History & Interests and curriculum vitae ( Microsoft Word document, 313 kB) at Harvard University (harvard.edu)
- Prashant Nair: Profile of George M. Church. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109, 2012, pp. 11893-11895, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1204148109
Individual evidence
- ↑ Web of Science Predicts 2016 Nobel Prize Winners. (No longer available online.) In: ipscience.thomsonreuters.com. September 21, 2016, archived from the original on September 21, 2016 ; accessed on September 21, 2016 (English).
- ↑ THE 2011 FRANKLIN INSTITUTE LAUREATES (PDF, 48 kB) ( Memento from January 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ George M. Church at the National Academy of Sciences (nasonline.org); accessed on May 31, 2014
- ^ Prof. George M. Church at the National Academy of Engineering (nae.edu); Retrieved June 9, 2014
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Church, George M. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Church, George; Church, George McDonald; Church, George MacDonald |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American molecular biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 28, 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tampa , Florida |