Welcome to the After-On podcast. I'm your host, Rob Reed.

And this is a series of conversations with thinkers, founders, and scientists.

Take a little time and stretch out because these talks are unhurry and meant to bring you

to a top percentile understanding of something important.

So whether you're ready to start up your ideas, a techie, or a lit major, take your time,

engage your mind, and you'll be glad you did it.

Especially this week when we'll be talking to...

Genomicist and bioengineered George Church, whose Harvard lab is one of the most celebrated

fonts of innovation in the world of life sciences.

George's earliest work on the Human Genome Project arguably predated the actual start of

that project.

Subsequently, he's been involved in the creation of almost a hundred companies, 22 of which

he co-founded.

Much of George's most recent and celebrated work has been with a technique called CRISPR,

which is spelled like the English word only in all caps and without an E. CRISPR is a

transformational powerful gene editing technique which George co-invented, and we'll soon

discuss it in depth.

But first I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who's been spreading the

word about this podcast.

For reasons I discussed in much further depth during our last episode, the one featuring

robot-assist Rodney Brooks, I need to roughly triple my listenership to about 50,000 people

to make this show economically sustainable, and I'm giving myself until the end of June

...