George Church

Impact

George Church is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, and founding core faculty member and lead of Synthetic Biology at the Wyss Institute. His contributions to genomics include the first direct genomic sequencing method (1984), which produced the first genome sequence, of the pathogen H. pylori; he helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. At the Wyss Institute his group works on directed evolution of molecules, polymers and whole genomes, and on faster, cheaper gene synthesis and genome engineering. In the longevity field he co-founded Rejuvenate Bio, launched from his laboratory in 2018, where he serves on the scientific advisory board. The San Diego company develops gene therapies aimed at extending healthy lifespan and treating age-related and chronic disease, initially in companion animals such as dogs with mitral valve disease, with the stated aim of eventual human applications; in 2026 it announced a research collaboration with Merck Animal Health. Church is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and received the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science.

Metrics

• h-index 229 · google scholar as of 2026-09-23 source ↗
• USD 10M raised by Rejuvenate Bio as of 2026-09-23 source ↗
• USD 6M raised by Rejuvenate Bio as of 2026-09-23 source ↗

Research output

944 works · 149,591 citations · h-index 191 OpenAlex ↗

Selected publications

• RNA-Guided Human Genome Engineering via Cas9 ↗ 2013 · 9,554 citations
• Genomic sequencing. ↗ 1984 · 8,224 citations
• Systematic determination of genetic network architecture ↗ 1999 · 2,562 citations
• A Deep Learning Approach to Antibiotic Discovery ↗ 2020 · 2,411 citations
• A Logic-Gated Nanorobot for Targeted Transport of Molecular Payloads ↗ 2012 · 2,216 citations

Research funding

35 NIH awards · USD 63M total NIH RePORTER ↗

• Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation National Human Genome Research Institute · 2010 · USD 4M
• Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation National Human Genome Research Institute · 2011 · USD 4M
• Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation National Human Genome Research Institute · 2012 · USD 4M
• Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation National Human Genome Research Institute · 2014 · USD 4M
• Causal Transcriptional Consequences of Human Genetic Variation National Human Genome Research Institute · 2013 · USD 4M

Links

Research fields