First, let’s address the label on his forehead. Dr. George Church is himself a lab specimen, “Subject No. 1,” in his own mission to map the genomes of 100,000 individuals for his Personal Genome Project (PGP) based at Harvard University. As a participant in this study, there is perhaps more personal data online about Church than any other human alive today, including nearly all of the six-billion A, T, G and C nucleotides that comprise his genome and help make him who he is. You’ll also find very personal details of Dr. Church’s medical history and conditions, including heart attack, carcinoma, narcolepsy, dyslexia, pneumonia and motion sickness. With this openness, Church is leading by example. He hopes to convince many others to make all of their molecular, medical and lifestyle information available for the world and scientific community to see and study. Dr. Church first came to prominence in the 1980s when, as a graduate student, he developed some of the earliest genetic sequencers. In 1984, Church was among a dozen researchers who proposed the revolutionary Human Genome Project (HGP), which set out to read for the first time the entire “instruction book,” as contained within our DNA, for making and maintaining a human being. Led by Dr. Francis Collins, the HGP team mapped 93% of a single human genome by 2003 at a cost of $3 billion. Now Church’s Personal Genome Project is taking the next step: By sequencing and comparing the genomes of thousands of
individuals, researchers hope to learn how individual genes work together to create physical traits like baldness or skin color, as well as how they can interact or mutate to cause disease. In addition, the PGP collects exhaustive data from its participants about their environments and medical histories, as our lives are clearly not predetermined by genetics alone. Dr. Church’s goal is for individuals to be able to have their own genome sequenced affordably, so that they and their doctors can use the information to understand their risk profiles for disease, their physical and biological characteristics, even their personal ancestry. In 2008, TIME magazine named personal genetic testing the invention of the year, writing, “We are at the beginning of a personal genomics revolution that will transform not only how we take care of ourselves but also what we mean by personal information.” Church graduated from Duke University and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. He is Director of the Center for Computational Genetics at Harvard Medical School and sits on the advisory board of more than 14 biotech companies, including personal genomics startup 23andMe and genetic testing pioneer DNA Direct. Church, who built his first computer at age nine and taught himself three programming languages by 15, was named one of the Ten Hottest Nerds by Newsweek. He is the recipient of the 2008 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award and the 2009 American Society for Microbiology Biotechnology Research Award. In April, 2011, Dr. Church will receive the prestigious Franklin Institute Award for Achievement in Science.
tonight ’s speaker
Dr. George Church