Med School Prof Discusses Biotechnology, Startups

Harvard Medical School professor George M. Church discussed the intersection of biotechnology and entrepreneurship in a lecture Tuesday.

The talk, titled “Wild Biotechnology,” was hosted by the Harvard Biotech Entrepreneurs, a student group focused on promoting interest in careers in biotechnology on campus. The group reached out to Church because “he’s truly a leader in the field,” club member John M. Elkington ’15 said.

Church discussed the work of biotechnicians in his lab who are studying the possibilities of reprogramming an organism’s nucleus to mimic a human being’s genome. One line of inquiry has been xenotransplantation, the process of growing human-compatible organs in animals like pigs, creating cells that scientists can use to develop and market new drugs.

“It’s about figuring out what personalized medicine of the future will be,” Church said. “It might take me 10, 20 years [to grow a heart from stem cells], while a pig could be on tap all the time.”

These human “organoids” provide more realistic models for study than cells on a Petri dish because they more closely resemble human DNA, Church said.

“You can make pigs that are essentially much closer to being universal donors,” Church said. “If it works, their organs will be going into people like you and me.”

Researchers at Church’s lab are also investigating applications of gene therapy—the rewriting of genetic code—in controlling diseases, pests, and invasive species.

“The hope is to make malaria [and other diseases] become extinct,” Church said.

Grounded in this genetics research, Church’s lab has helped launch 14 startups prior to this year, and researchers and postdocs are currently creating about six more. Church emphasized the importance of taking lab results to a broader market.

“How do you get things out of your head, out of your lab, and into the world?” Church asked. “If you’re not part of the economic community, there’s a chance…you’ll fall behind.”

Students responded to Church’s work with excitement.

“Right now in biotech, everything is expanding at an exponential rate.... Ten years ago [Church’s work] was science fiction,” Erik C. Owen ’18 said.

Max E. Zacher ’15 said he appreciated Church’s eagerness to discuss new developments, like editing the genetic code of a wild species.

“A lot of scientists can be conservative, but he’s not afraid to talk about new technologies,” Zacher said.

Church said he hopes that the lecture will encourage students to consider careers with biotech startups, as opposed to their Internet-based counterparts.

“The rewards for biotechnology are tremendous—to solve disease, eliminate poverty, age gracefully,” Church said. “It sounds so much cooler than Facebook.”