Church wants to turbocharge the evolutionary process by putting new genes into organisms rather than waiting around for them to evolve those genes on their...
Harvard Biologist George Church wants to turbocharge the evolutionary process by putting new genes into organisms rather than waiting around for them to evolve those genes on their own.
By Sharon Begley, STAT
Harvard biologist George Church burst into the headlines (yet again) last week when he helped organize a closed-door meeting of scores of top scientists to discuss accelerating efforts to create synthetic DNA — including a complete human genome.
They’re considering launching a decade-long drive to build, from scratch, all the genes that make humans human.
The meeting raised all sorts of ethical questions. But that’s nothing new for Church. He has been stirring controversy, and excitement, in the scientific community for decades. He wants to reanimate the woolly mammoth, edit pig genes so their organs can be transplanted safely into people — oh, and reverse aging.
In short, you’ll want to keep an eye on him. Here’s a start:
Who is George Church?
He’s the Harvard biologist who has become as famous for his Stephen Colbert appearances and for looking like Charles Darwin, Santa Claus, or God (depending on your bent) as for his many seminal scientific discoveries.
So, is he the new Darwin?
Darwin explained how species evolve. Church wants to turbocharge that process by putting new genes into organisms rather than waiting around for them to evolve those genes on their own.
For instance, he is using CRISPR, the revolutionary genome-editing technology he helped develop, to alter 62 pig genes at a time, which might allow their organs to be transplanted into people without being rejected.
As for his divinity, not yet. But he has embarked on efforts to resurrect the dead (mammoths, as he explained at a TED Talk on “de-extinction”) and smite the living (mosquitoes that carry malaria and other disease-causing pathogens, via a revolutionary technique called gene drive).
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It’s funny. Professor Church actually LOOKS like a wizard.
