Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Middle):
Church, George, M.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Provide the following information for the key personnel and other significant contributors in the order listed on Form Page 2.
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NAME
POSITION TITLE
Church, George, M., PhD.
eRA COMMONS USER NAME (credential, e.g., agency login)
Professor
GCHURCH
EDUCATION/TRAINING (Begin with baccalaureate or other initial professional education, such as nursing, and include postdoctoral training.)
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
DEGREE
(if applicable)
YEAR(s)
B.A.
PhD.
1974
1984
Duke University, Durham, NC
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
FIELD OF STUDY
Zoology & Chem.
Biochem. & Mol. Biol.
A. Personal Statement:
The goal of our part of the proposed research is to develop enabling technology for large-scale de novo
synthesis of yeast chromosomes from oligonucleotides arrays. Specifically, we plan to focus on selections and
counter-selections for metabolic pathways functioning in humans or producing inhibitors of human proteins.
Our group has pioneered the use of oligo arrays for synthetic biology [15] as well as automated changes in
living genomes [5], “next-generation” sequencing [2,6,14], computer aided metabolic design [9], selection and
lab evolution [1,5,14]. From my thesis to the present I have worked on yeast [13] and human [7,11] biology
using novel genetic technologies. Translation of technologies into clinical and commercial sector has been a
priority (e.g. co-initiating metabolic-engineering companies LS9, Gen9, Joule, and Genomatica). I have been a
part of the synthetic biology community since the first iGEM in 2004 and first SynBERC consortium in 2005.
B. Positions and Honors:
1984 Scientist, Biogen Research Corporation, Cambridge, MA
1985-1986 Research Fellow, Anatomy, Univ. Calif., San Francisco, CA
1986-1998 Assistant/Associate Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
1997-present Director of the Lipper Center for Computational Genetics, Boston, MA
1998-present Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
2002-present Director of the Harvard/MIT DOE Genomes-to-Life Center
2004-present Director of the Harvard/MIT/WashU NHGRI CEGS
2006-present Senior Associate of Broad Inst. of Harvard & MIT (1990 Genome Center Co-founder)
Honors, Awards, & Scientific Memberships:
1974-1975 National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow
1985-1986 Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellow
1976 National Science Foundation Program Project Grant Review Committee
1986-1997 Howard Hughes Medical Institute
1988,1992,1994 Department of Energy Genome Project Grant Review Committee
1990 NIH Genome Study Section Grant Review
1990 Co-founder of MIT, Stanford, & GTC Genome Sequencing Centers
1994-1997 National Center for Human Genome Research Review Committee
2001-present NIH BISTI, Pioneer, grant review committees, NHLBI BEE, NAS committees
Editorial Boards Nature/EMBO-MSB, Genome Biology, Omics, BioMedNet
Editorial Reviewer Nature (&NG, NB), Science, PNAS, Genome Research, NAR
Scientific Boards: LS9, 23andme, Knome, Genomatica, JouleBio, CompleteGenomics, Sigma-Aldrich, Halcyon
2008 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Awards (LS9 & 23andme)
2009 American Society for Microbiology Biotechnology Research Award
PHS 398/2590 (Rev. 11/07)
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Program Director / Principal Investigator: Church, George M.
C. Selected peer-reviewed publications. (also see http://arep.med.harvard.edu)
1. Sommer MOA, Church GM, Dantas G (2010) A functional metagenomic approach for expanding the
synthetic biology toolbox for biomass conversion Nature EMBO MSB in press.
2. Drmanac R, et al. (2010) Human Genome Sequencing Using Unchained Base Reads on Self-assembling
DNA Nanoarrays. Science 327(5961):78-81
3. Sommer MO, Dantas G, Church GM. (2009) Functional Characterization of the Antibiotic Resistance
Reservoir in the Human Microflora. Science Aug 28; 325 (5944) 1128 - 1131
4. Friedland AE, Lu TK, Wang X, Shi D, Church GM, Collins J (2009) Synthetic Gene Networks that Count.
Science. Jun 14; 324(5931):1199-202.
5. Wang HH, Isaacs FJ, Carr PA, Sun ZZ, Xu G, Forest CR, Church GM (2009) Programming cells by
multiplex genome engineering and accelerated evolution. Nature. Jul 26; 460(7257):894-8.
6. Li JB, Levanon EY, Yoon J-K, Aach J, Xie B, LeProust E, Zhang K, Gao Y, Church GM (2009) Genomewide Identification of Human RNA Editing Sites by Massively Parallel DNA Capturing and Sequencing.
Science. Jun 14; 324(5931):1210-3.
7. Sullivan GJ, Hay DC, Park IH, Fletcher J, Hannoun Z, Payne CM, Dalgetty D, Black JR, Ross J, Samuel K,
Wang G, Daley GQ, Lee JH, Church GM, Forbes SJ, Iredale JP, Wilmut I (2010 Generation of Functional
Human Hepatic Endoderm from Human iPS cells. Hepatology Jan;51(1):329-35.
8. Tolonen A, Chilaka AC, Church GM (2009) Targeted gene inactivation in Clostridium phytofermentans
shows that cellulose degradation requires the family 9 hydrolase Cphy3367.Mol Microbiol Dec;74(6):1300-13.
9. Lun DS, Rockwell G, Guido NJ, Baym M, Kelner JA, Galagan JE, Church GM (2009) Large-Scale
Identification of Genetic Design Strategies using Local Search. Nature EMBO MSB 5:296.
10. Zhang K, Li JB, Gao Y, Egli D, Xie B, Lee JH, Aach J, LeProust E, Eggan K, Church GM (2009) Digital
RNA Allelotyping Reveals Tissue-specific and Allele-specific Gene Expression in Human. Nature Methods
Aug;6(8):613-8.
11. Lee J, Park IH, Gao Y, Li JB, Li Z, Daley G, Zhang K, Church GM (2009) A Robust Approach to Identifying
Tissue-specific Gene Expression Regulatory Variants Using Personalized Human Induced Pluripotent Stem
Cells. PLoS Genetics Nov;5(11):e1000718. PMC2766639
12. Carr P, Church GM (2009) Genome Engineering. Nature Biotech. Dec;27(12):1151-62.
13. Snitkin ES, Dudley AM, Janse DM, Wong K, Church GM, Daniel Segre D (Sep 2008). Model-driven
analysis of experimentally determined growth phenotypes for 465 yeast gene deletion mutants under 16
different conditions. Genome Biology 9:R140.
14. Shendure J, Porreca GJ, Reppas NB, Lin X, McCutcheon JP, Rosenbaum AM, Wang MD , Zhang K, Mitra
RD, Church GM (2005) Accurate Multiplex Polony Sequencing of an Evolved Bacterial Genome Science
309(5741):1728-32.
15. Tian J, Gong H, Sheng N, Zhou X, Gulari E, Gao X, Church G. (2004) Accurate multiplex gene synthesis
from programmable DNA microchips. Nature. 2004 Dec 23;432(7020):1050-4.
D. Research Support:
Ongoing:
DE-FG02-03ER63445 (GTL)
2/01/03 – 11/30/11
DOE-GTL
PI: George Church Lab
Title: Microbial Ecology, Proteogenomics & Computational Optima
Our role in this Project is to develop analytic and synthetic biology tools for metabolic engineering
1P50 HG005550 (CEGS)
NIH- NHGRI
9/13/10-07/31/2015
PI: George Church
Title: "Center for Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation"
Role: The Center for Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation (CTCHGV) will develop
innovative and powerful genetic engineering methods and use them to identify genetic variations that causally
control gene transcription levels.
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Program Director / Principal Investigator: Church, George M.
SA5283-11210 (NSF)
7/01/06 – 6/30/11
PI: Jay Keasling (UC Berkeley)
Title: Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC)
Our role is to develop synthetic bacterial genome “chassis” for safe use in mammals
W911NF-08-1-0254 (DARPA)
6/27/08 – 1/31/11
PI: Neil Gershenfeld (MIT)
Title: Milli-Biology: Programmed Assembly of Engineered Materials
RO1 HL 094963- 01 (NHLBI)
9/30/08 - 6/30/11 (NCE)
NIH - NHLBI
PI: George Church
Title: Targeted 2nd generation sequencing in phenotyped Framingham & PGP populations
Goal: To develop, demonstrate, and validate a pipeline for high-throughput, low-cost targeted resequencing of
all human exons based on next-generation (gen2) sequencing techniques in support of the long term goal of
enabling sequencing to be used routinely to characterize genotypes and genetic variation in genome-wide
medical targets for large populations of individuals
AG-SS-2084-08 (Ellison)
11/01/08 -9/30/12
The Ellison Medical Foundation
PI: George Church
Title: Establishment and Functional Characterization of a Large DNA Fragment Resource from the Long-lived
Naked Mole-Rat for Comparison with Mice.
Goal: The identification and characterization of naked mole-rat genes that contributed to the evolution of a long
lifespan in this species.
RC2 HG005592 (NHGRI)
9/30/09-07/31/11
NIH-NHGRI – (Halcyon)
PI: George Church
Title: Development of Electron Microscopy-based Nucleic Acid Polymer Sequencing
Project: We aim to provide a comprehensive foundation for development of an ultra-low-cost, ultra-fast nucleic
acid polymer sequencing technology based on single-atom resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
of heavy atom-labeled nucleic acid polymers.
RC2HL102815 (NHLBI)
9/30/09-08/31/11
NIH- NHLBI
PI: George Daley (CHB)
Title: Comparative phenotypic, functional, and molecular analysis of ESC and iPSC
ONRBAA09-001 (ONR)
4/01/10-03/31/13
Office of Naval Research
PI: George Church
Title: Multiplexed Pathway and Organism Engineering
RC1 HG005482 (NCRR)
9/22/09-06/30/11
NIH/NCRR
PI: Peter Park
Title: Statistical Methods for Estimation of Copy Number from Next – Generation Sequencing
ARPA- E grant (DOE)
7/01/10-06/30/13
DOE- DE-AR0000079
Title: Engineering a Bacterial Reverse Fuel Cell
PI: Silver, Pamela A; Co-I: George Church
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Program Director / Principal Investigator: Church, George M.
OVERLAP: None
Completed:
P50 HG003170 (CEGS)
5/01/04 – 04/30/10 (NCE)
NIH - NHGRI
PI: George Church
Title: Molecular and Genomic Imaging Center
Our role is to develop polony technology for resequencing of DNA and RNA in stem cells
P50 HG003170 (CEGS supplement)
9/18/09-08/31/10
NIH- NHGRI
PI: George Church
Title: Molecular and Genomic Imaging Center
Role: The goal of this request for supplemental funding for our Molecular and Genomic Imaging CEGS (MGIC)
is further development of MGIC initiatives focused on single cell and splice isoform analysis along with
enabling MGIC technology.
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