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Top 20
Influencers in
Synthetic Biology
Top 20 synthetic biology
influencers
Who are the most influential people at
the scientific and commercial end of
synthetic biology?
This is the question we asked our blog subscribers, LinkedIn group members and
anyone in our contact network to compile a comprehensive list of the Top 20 as
named by you.
The following 20 personalities were picked based on their career achievements whether this was groundbreaking discovery and research or innovation, lifetime
dedication or simply because they might have inspired others to do well. It is great to
see that we have representatives from both academic and industry organisations.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us compile the list and please feel free to
share it with your colleagues.
20
Lionel Clarke
Biodomain Global Strategic
Programme Manager
Shell Global Solutions
Lionel Clarke is also Chairman of the UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap
Coordination Group. The Working Group is tasked with producing a roadmap
setting out ambitions for developing synthetic biology in the UK.
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Lionel Clarke is the Biodomain Global Strategic Programme Manager for Shell
Global Solutions at the Shell Technology Centre Thornton, UK. In this role he
is responsible for planning and delivery of Shell strategic research and
technology programmes across the Biodomain, deploying internal and
external resources to deliver innovative solutions to market. Within Shell he
has gained extensive experience working at the interface between fuels and
engines, designing new and improved fuels and introducing them into
markets.
19
As Director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, Dr. Somerville oversees all
open activities at the Institute, including research, communications,
education and outreach. He also chairs the Institute's Executive Committee
and reports to the Governance Board.
Dr. Somerville is a professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scientist at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
His research focuses on the characterization of proteins implicated in plant
cell-wall synthesis and modification. The research program in his lab is largely
directed toward understanding how plant cell wall polysaccharides are
synthesized, how the structures relate to the functions of the cell wall, and
how the system is regulated. He envisions that knowledge of cell wall
structure and function will facilitate the development of plants with
improved utility as sources of renewable materials and as biofuel feedstocks.
He has published more than 200 scientific papers in plant and microbial
genetics, genomics, biochemistry and biotechnology.
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Chris Somerville,
Director
Energy Biosciences Institute;
Professor, Department of Plant and
Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley
18
David Baker
Professor of Biochemistry
University of Washington
Dr. Baker is also a professor of biochemistry and an adjunct professor of
genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science
and physics at the University of Washington, Seattle.
His Awards include the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in
Biophysics, Centenary Award, Biochemical Society, Foresight Institute
Feynman Prize, AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, International Society for
Computational Biology Overton Prize and Protein Society Young Investigator
Award.
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David Baker is an American biochemist and computational biologist who
studies methods to predict the three-dimensional structures of proteins. He
is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington (UW) where
he is the principal investigator of the 60+ member Baker laboratory. He is a
Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and is also a member of the
United States National Academy of Sciences.
17
Jason is Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at the University of
Cambridge, and holds a joint appointment at the University of Cambridge
Department of Chemistry. He is also a fellow in Natural Sciences at Trinity
College, Cambridge. He was an undergraduate at Oxford University, where he
worked with Professor John Sutherland on Cephalosporin biosynthesis. He
obtained his PhD as a Fulbright grantee from Yale University, working with
Professor Alanna Schepartz on the design and evolution of miniature
proteins. He was a Damon Runyon Fellow at The Scripps Research Institute
with Professor Peter Schultz where he developed the first approaches to
systematically expand the genetic code of eukaryotic cells and pioneered
approaches, that are now widely used, for defining protein interactions by
genetically encoding photocrosslinking amino acids.
He was awarded the Francis Crick Prize by the Royal Society in 2009 and the
Royal Society of Chemistry’s Corday Morgan Prize in 2010. He was also
awarded the European Molecular Biology Organization’s (EMBO) Gold Medal
and elected to EMBO membership in 2010. He is the inaugural recipient
(2011) of the Louis-Jeantet Young Investigator Career Award, selected from
amongst winners of ERC grants.
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Jason Chin
Programme Leader
Medical Research Council Laboratory of
Molecular Biology;
Head
Centre for Chemical & Synthetic Biology
16
Tim Gardner
Director of Research Programs &
Operations
Amyris
His work has also been recognized by Scientific American, the New Scientist,
Technology Review, and the New York Times.
Tim currently serves on the boards of the ENIGMA project at Lawrence
Berkeley National Labs, and the Boston University Alumni Leadership Council.
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Dr Timothy Gardner serves as the Director of Research Programs &
Operations at Amyris, a company producing high-performance chemical
products from the fermentation of renewable feedstocks including sugarcane
and lignocellulosic biomass. At Amyris, Tim leads the R&D program for
farnesene-producing microbes and manufacturing process technologies.
Farnesene is Amyris’ base molecule for its renewable diesel fuel, jet fuel,
lubricant, cosmetic oil and polymer products. He also previously served as
the Director of Computational Biology at Amyris.
15
Jim Haseloff
Head of Laboratory
University of Cambridge
Prior to joining the Department of Plant Sciences, Jim served as group leader
at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and his group
developed advanced imaging techniques and modified fluorescent proteins
for efficient use in plants. Before this, Jim was a research fellow at Harvard
Medical School, working on trans-splicing ribozymes. He has also worked at
the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra, and developed methods for
the design of the first synthetic RNA enzymes with novel substrate
specificities.
Jim is deeply involved with teaching Synthetic Biology at the University of
Cambridge, and is very interested in its wider potential as a tool for
engineering biological systems and underpinning sustainable technologies.
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Jim Haseloff is a plant biologist working at the Department of Plant Sciences,
University of Cambridge. His scientific interests are focused on the
engineering of plant morphogenesis, using microscopy, molecular genetic,
computational and synthetic biology techniques.
14
Professor Kitney is also Senior Dean and Director of the Graduate School of
Engineering and Physical Science, Imperial College London. He was the first
Head of Department of the Department of Bioengineering and the Director
of the Centre of Medical and Biological Systems.
Prof. Kitney has published over 300 papers in the fields of biomedical signal
and image processing, medical visualisation, medical informatics and the
general application of computers to healthcare.
Kitney is also currently Co-Director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and
Innovation (CSynBI). It was established in January 2009 at Imperial College
London in partnership with the BIOS Centre at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. CSynBI is funded through a 5-year EPSRC
Science and Innovation Award that aims to build new activity in areas of
national strategic importance, with a particular focus on supporting new
research leaders.
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Richard Kitney
Professor of Biomedical Systems
Engineering, Department of
Bioengineering
Imperial College London
13
Pamela Silver
Professor of Systems Biology
Harvard Medical School
Her work was recognized by an Innovation Award at BIO2007 and has been
funded by grants from the NIH, DoD, NSF, Novartis, Merck, and The Keck
Foundation. She currently holds an NIH MERIT award. She also initiated and
co-directs the Harvard undergraduate team for the International Genetically
Engineered Machines Competition (iGEM).
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Pamela Silver, Ph.D., currently researches the logical engineering of biology
and the use of genomics, genetics, and cell-based screens in the study of
diseases and drug action. She is one of the founders of the new area of
synthetic biology, where she is building cell-based machines, developing
protein-based logic for design of novel therapeutics, and engineering cells as
sources of bio-energy and optimization of carbon dioxide fixation.
12
Professor Freemont is also co-founder and co-director of the EPSRC Centre
for Synthetic Biology and Innovation at Imperial College London. The Centre
is the first of its kind in the UK and aims to develop foundational
technologies to enable synthetic biology research in application areas like
biosensors, biosynthesis, bioprocessing and metabolic and genome
engineering.
He is also co-founder of a spin out company Equinox Pharma Ltd and has
held a number of external positions and is currently the chair of the Diamond
Light Source Scientific Advisory Committee and board member of the MRC
Molecular and Cellular Medicines Board.
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Paul Freemont
Co-PI of the Macromolecular
Structure and Function Laboratory,
Department of Life Sciences
Imperial College London
11
Christopher Voigt is an American synthetic biologist, molecular biophysicist,
and engineer. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological
Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research
interests focus on the reprogramming of bacterial organisms to perform
coordinated, complex tasks for pharmaceutical and industrial applications.
He is a member of the National Science Foundation-funded Synthetic Biology
Engineering Research Center, called SynBERC, and works in the developing
field of synthetic biology.
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Christopher Voigt
Associate Professor in the Department of
Biological Engineering
MIT;
Editor-in-Chief
ACS Synthetic Biology
10
Rino Rappuoli
Global Head of Vaccines Research
Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics
Most recently a team of international researchers from the J. Craig Venter
Institute (JCVI), Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI) Biomedical Advanced Research
and Development Authority (BARDA, US Department of Health and Human
Services), Institut fur Virologie, Phillips University and Novartis Vaccines &
Diagnostics, has published a study detailing new methods to rapidly generate
influenza vaccine seeds by using synthetic genomics tools and technologies.
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Rino Rappuoli is Global Head of Vaccines Research at Novartis Vaccines and
Diagnostics and is based in Siena, Italy. He is known globally for his work in
vaccines and immunology. He co-founded the field of cellular microbiology, a
discipline combining cell biology and microbiology, and pioneered the
genomic approach to vaccine development known as reverse vaccinology.
9
Joseph Jacobson
Associate Professor
MIT
Jacobson received his PhD in Physics from MIT and was a post-doctoral
fellow at Stanford in the area of Quantum Optics. He is the recipient of a
1999 Technology Review TR100 Award for Innovation, The 2000 Gutenberg
Prize and a 2001 Discover Award. He has authored over 70 peer reviewed
papers and conference proceedings in the fields of femotosecond lasers,
quantum optics, molecular electronics, nano-chemistry and synthetic DNA.
In the private sector Jacobson was co-founder of E Ink, Kovio and Gen9 and
was a founding board member of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) which is
focused on developing a $100 laptop for kids.
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Joseph Jacobson is Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) where he is co-PI of the Center for Bits and Atoms and
leads the Molecular Machine Group. His group at MIT is focused on
pioneering the field of Avogadro Scale Engineering with applications in novel
computing machines and synthetic biology.
8
Randy Rettberg
Principal Research Engineer, Biological Engineering
Division
MIT;
President
iGEM
Randy is coordinator of the International Genetically Engineered Machine
(iGEM)competition. iGEM is the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology
competition, started at MIT in 2003 by Rettberg, Tom Knight, and Drew Endy,
and now drawing 180 student teams who use existing and newly created
BioBrick™ parts to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.
Rettberg is also the manager of the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a
continuously growing collection of genetic parts that can be mixed and
matched to build synthetic biology devices and systems.
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Rettberg is staunch evangelist for synthetic biology. An engineer by training,
he worked for years at Internet pioneer BBN (now Genuity), later moved to
Sun Microsystems, where he was CTO for storage systems, and then came to
MIT.
7
James Collins
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Boston University
Collins has been involved with a number of start-up companies, and his
inventions and technologies have been licensed by several biotech and
medical device companies. Collins currently chairs the Scientific Advisory
Board (SAB) of Sample6 Technologies and EnBiotix, and serves on the SAB of
Joule Unlimited, Selventa, Seres Health, enEvolv, Synereca Pharmaceuticals,
LifeWave Ltd, Excel Medical Ventures and PureTech Ventures.
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James Collins is an American bioengineer, Professor of Biomedical
Engineering at Boston University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI) Investigator. He is one of the founders of the emerging field of
synthetic biology, and a pioneering researcher in systems biology, having
made fundamental discoveries regarding the actions of antibiotics and the
emergence of antibiotic resistance.
6
Professor Weiss is also affiliated to the Dept. of Biological Engineering, Dept.
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Center for Synthetic
Biology.
Professors Weiss’ research interests include synthetic biology, construction
and analysis of synthetic gene networks, use of computer engineering
principles of abstraction, composition, and interface specifications to
program cells with sensors and actuators precisely controlled by analog and
digital logic circuitry. Emphasis on establishing the engineering foundation for
synthetic biology and the pursuit of novel applications enabled by the
technology (e.g. programmed tissue engineering, diabetes, engineered
neuronal circuits).
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Ron Weiss
Associate Professor of Biological
Engineering; Director, Synthetic Biology
Center
MIT
5
J Craig Venter
Founder, Chairman and CEO
J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI)
In addition to his role at SGI, he is founder, president and chairman of the J.
Craig Venter Institute. Craig was also the founder of Human Genome
Sciences, Diversa Corporation and Celera Genomics. He and his teams have
sequenced more than 300 organisms including human, fruit fly, mouse, rat,
and dog as well as numerous microorganisms and plants. Craig is also the key
leader in the field of synthetic genomics. This work, trying to create the first
synthetic genome, is leading to extraordinary advances in engineering
microorganisms for many vital energy and environmental applications used
at SGI.
Craig is the author of more than 200 research articles and is among the most
cited scientists in the world. He is the recipient of numerous honorary
degrees and scientific awards including the 2008 National Medal of Science.
Craig is also a member of many prestigious scientific organizations including
the National Academy of Sciences.
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Dr. J. Craig Venter is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st
century for his invaluable contributions in genomic research, most notably
for the first sequencing and analysis of the human genome published in 2001
and the most recent and most complete sequencing of his diploid human
genome in 2007.
4
Tom Knight
Senior Research Scientist, Computer Science
and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT
Considered by most to be a father of the field of synthetic biology, Tom
Knight co-launched the Registry of Standard Biological Parts and the iGEM
competition. He also invented the BioBrick™ standard for physical
composition of genetic parts that underpins the Registry and iGEM
competition.
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Tom Knight is a Senior Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Tom is well-known for numerous seminal
contributions to electrical engineering and computer science. He has over 30
patents and has started several companies including Symbolics, Exa, Polychip,
Tenedos, Silicon Spice, High Speed Solutions, Permabit, Microdisplay, and
Scalable Display Technologies.
3
Drew Endy
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Stanford University
Drew co-founded the MIT Synthetic Biology working group and the Registry
of Standard Biological Parts, and organized the First International Conference
on Synthetic Biology. With colleagues he taught the 2003 and 2004 MIT
Synthetic Biology labs that led to the organization of iGEM, the international
Genetically Engineered Machine competition. In 2005 Drew co-founded the
BioBricks Foundation.
Drew’s research interests are the engineering of integrated biological systems
and error detection and correction in reproducing machines.
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Drew Endy is one of the leaders in the field of synthetic biology. His work
continues to shape and drive the development of the field, both in terms of
the creation of BioBrick™ standard parts but also in terms of the human side
of the field. The BioBricks Foundation was created by Endy and several close
colleagues who are also scientific leaders in the synbio field.
2
Jay Keasling
Professor of Chemical Engineering and
Bioengineering
University of California
In 2009, Keasling was awarded the first annual Biotech Humanitarian Award
by BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization. In 2004, the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $42.5 million grant to the Institute for
OneWorld Health to develop and distribute the low-cost malaria treatment
based on Keasling's technology. In 2006 Discover magazine awarded its first
ever Scientist of the Year Award to Jay Keasling. Keasling is a member of the
National Academy of Engineering.
Other related research interests include systems biology and environmental
biotechnology.
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Jay Keasling is also Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Founding Head of the Synthetic
Biology Department in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, and chief executive officer of the Joint BioEnergy
Institute. He is considered one of the foremost authorities in synthetic
biology, especially in the field of metabolic engineering.
1
George McDonald Church
Professor of Genetics
Harvard Medical School
In 2011, Church was awarded the Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in
Science of the Franklin Institute (awarded once every 7 years in Life
Sciences). Other honours include the American Society for Microbiology
Promega Biotechnology Research Award in 2009, the Triennial International
Steven Hoogendijk Award in 2010, the Scientific American Top 50 twice (for
“Designing artificial life” in 2005 and "The $1000 genome" in 2006).
Newsweek picked Church for their 2008 “Power of Ideas” recognition in the
category of Medicine (for the Personal Genome Project). In September 2010,
Dr Church was honoured for his work in Genetics with the Mass High Tech
All-Star Award.
He was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences (in 2011) and the
National Academy of Engineering (in 2012).
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George McDonald Church is an American geneticist, molecular engineer, and
chemist. He is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of
Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, and founding core
member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard
University. He is widely regarded as a pioneer in personal genomics and
synthetic biology.
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