George Church: Playing With Fire
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2015
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
George Church learns a lesson on the power of nature the hard way. George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Director of NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Studies, and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world's only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing, and barcoding. His innovations have contributed to nearly all "next generation" genome sequencing methods and companies. He has also pioneered new privacy, biosafety, environmental, and biosecurity policies. His honors include election to NAS, NAE, and Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 370 papers, 60 patents, and one book.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt it. |
| 0:07.0 | I was so... |
| 0:09.0 | And I just thought, well... |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:13.0 | Because science was on my side. Hey everyone, I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:32.5 | This week's stories from George Church. It was recorded in July 2015 at Oberon in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:04.0 | So I'm all about risk. It's a very ancient and I think deeply human urge to want to harness nature, whether it's fire or living creatures. |
| 1:09.0 | And that's what I'll tell you that. |
| 1:13.3 | My father was Air Force pilot. |
| 1:17.6 | He would fly the strata tankers that would be full of fuel |
| 1:23.5 | that they would inject by mating with a B-52 bomber. |
| 1:28.3 | And I think the hypothesis is this was keeping America safe. |
| 1:33.3 | And the B-50 toe, of course, had the ultimate fire in it, |
| 1:37.3 | which was hydrogen bombs. |
| 1:39.3 | And they never dropped it on our enemies, |
| 1:42.3 | but they did drop two of them on North Carolina at one point |
| 1:46.0 | when one of these mating procedures didn't quite work out. |
| 1:51.0 | So my father had harnessed fire and air while my uncle Johnny was conquering the animals of earth and water. |
| 2:05.6 | The family legend had it that Johnny, when he was pre-teenager, he would disappear for days at a time |
| 2:16.6 | and he would sew his Native American name into his foot, |
... |
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