Richie Kohman, PhD
Richie Kohman, PhD is an inventor and scientist with more than 15 years of experience spanning academia, industry, and nonprofit research. His work focuses on high-risk, high-reward programs at the interface of synthetic biology, neurotechnology, and nucleic acid chemistry. Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering and led the Synthetic Biology Platform at Harvard’s Wyss Institute. He has co-led initiatives in nucleic acid synthesis, genome engineering, gene and cell therapies, and in situ sequencing, and was co-principal investigator on the IARPA MICrONS project mapping neural connectivity. Richie earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.
George Church, PhD
George Church, PhD is a geneticist and technologist whose work has shaped modern genomics and synthetic biology. He is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, where his laboratory develops tools for genome engineering, nucleic acid synthesis, and molecular recording. Widely recognized as a founder of genomics, he co-initiated the Human Genome Project, created the first direct genome sequencing method, and launched the Personal Genome Project. His innovations in molecular multiplexing, homologous recombination, and DNA synthesis have enabled many advances in biotechnology and medicine. Beyond academia, he has co-founded numerous biotech companies translating synthetic-biology research into practical applications. George earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Harvard University.