Recalling the late nights spent in the labs of Evans Science Center attempting to increase the size of venus flytraps, George Church ’72 attributes much of his scientific success to his time at Andover.
Church is a professor at Harvard Medical School and an interdisciplinary scientist in the fields of biology, chemistry and mathematics. He is a recipient of this year’s Andover Alumni Award of Distinction.
Church is known mostly for his co-discovery of the first instrument for reading and writing DNA sequences. Church also helped initiate the Human Genome Project, an international research effort to map all human genes.
Church arrived at Andover from a school with very few athletic opportunities and no extracurriculars. “When I came to Andover, I was behind quite a bit, so much so that I had to repeat ninth grade. But, by the time I left, I was two years ahead because of all the AP courses, as well as the independent studies that I did while at Andover. Essentially, I went from one year behind to two years ahead,” said Church.
Wasting no time, Church began his first independent project in computer science, then called Applicational Math, in his Junior year.
Church’s independent academic pursuits defined his Andover career. He did another independent study in computer science during his Upper year and independent projects in both chemistry and biology during his Senior year.
“When I got to college, I just started skipping classes and continuing to research on my own,” said Church. “My studies at Andover are one of the reasons that I went to graduate school after only two years of college, and I started writing papers within two years of leaving Andover. Andover was a very transformative experience, one could say.”
Clayton Betford, former Instructor in Math and Wrestling Coach, was Church’s greatest influence while at Andover. Church dedicated his Ph.D. thesis to Betford.
Church learned the importance of teamwork by running cross country and track, wrestling and cycling, for all four years. “Before Andover, I was more dependent on teachers and parents and less dependent on fellow students. I was less of a team player,” said Church.
After graduating Andover in 1972, Church enrolled at Duke University. Focusing his energy on independent research instead of classes, he left Duke after two years. Church authored enough publications to attend graduate school at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard while studying with Wally Gilbert, who had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980 according to Nobelprize.org.
As a professor at Harvard Medical School, Church said his favorite part of his job is interacting with students, helping them plan experiments and analyze results. He is currently developing ways of encoding information like videos into envelopes of DNA.
“If I had to choose out of all the disciplines, I would choose interdisciplinary,” said Church. “The individual disciplines are just too limiting. In our lab what we are good at, is not any one individual discipline, but rather the integration of different disciplines.”
Church continued, “I am not particularly good at any one small subject, but I am fairly good at bridging subjects—for example, bridging optics and stem cells.”
Church was not on campus to receive the award at the ceremony held last Friday, as he was travelling in Asia. He plans to visit campus sometime in the near future.
