Q&A: George Church’s Genome Up for Auction

A founder of the field of synthetic biology is selling data from his own DNA as a nonfungible token, or NFT, through Nebula Genomics, a personal genome company he cofounded.

Written byJef Akst

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In 2017, Harvard University genomics pioneer George Church teamed up with two young scientists to launch Nebula Genomics, a sequencing service with an emphasis on transparency with regard to how genomic data are used. Now, in an effort to bring more attention to issues surrounding data ownership, the company is putting Church’s genome up for auction as a nonfungible token (NFT), a form of cryptocurrency that provides proof of ownership of a digital or physical object and has shot to popularity in recent years with the rise of blockchain technology.

Church’s genome was the one of the first to be sequenced, and it was the first to be made publicly available, along with his medical records, multiomics data, and other information, as part of the Personal Genome Project (PGP) he launched in 2005. “The NFT was not my idea, but hopefully it is a good idea,” ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
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Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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