The genomic revolution is being driven by advances in analytical and computational techniques, and George Church has been behind many of them. Starting in the late 1970s, Church helped create the tools, including early software and protocols for DNA sequencing, that eventually made possible the Human Genome Project.

These days, Church, a professor of genetics at the Harvard Medical School, and his 50-person lab are still finding ways to synthesize and sequence DNA faster and more cheaply. One of his latest interests is synthetic biology, in which researchers design and synthesize biological "parts" that they then incorporate into microbes or cells.