George Church, Autodesk embark on project to synthesize the human genome
George Church and over 20 scientists have unveiled their project to synthesize the 3 billion base pairs of the human genome. The initiative, called Human Genome Project-Write, is being overseen by a nonprofit, The Center of Excellence for Engineering Biology, that this year is seeking to raise the first $100M of a budget that could swell to $1B.
Church and his collaborators see the project as a way to advance the synthesis of long strands of DNA and enable an array of health advances such as the growth of transplantable organs, engineering of cancer resistant cells and lowering of drug development costs by using human cells and organoids. The potential to lead to the creation of babies with synthesized genomes has sparked an ethical debate concerning the project.
The project has attracted the financial and technical support of Autodesk, a 3-D design software firm.
