George Church has been at the frontier of genetic engineering for four decades, contributing to technologies from DNA sequencing to CRISPR. His lab at Harvard has become a factory for breakthrough ideas in synthetic biology, including ambitious projects to resurrect the woolly mammoth and reverse human aging. Church approaches longevity as an engineering problem: identify the genetic factors that cause aging and fix them. He has identified genes that protect against age-related diseases and is developing gene therapies to confer those protections broadly. Church's willingness to experiment on himself, he has taken some of his own lab's longevity interventions, reflects his confidence in the approach. If aging is solved, Church's work will likely be foundational.
Key contributions
- Pioneered genome sequencing methods
- Key contributor to CRISPR development
- Founded multiple biotech companies
- Developing gene therapies for aging reversal
Quotes (1)
“Many more people die from aging than in pandemics, and the benefits of reversing aging are too beneficial for governments to ignore.”
paraphrased · 2021