Our Team

“Valuable achievement can sprout from human society only when it is sufficiently loosened to make possible the free development of an individual’s abilities.”

– Albert Einstein

Omar Abudayyeh, Ph.D.

McGovern Fellow

Principal Investigator

Omar Abudayyeh is a McGovern Institute Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he conducts independent research on investigating novel molecular tools for genome editing, gene delivery, and cell control. He previously was at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program as an MD/PhD student. He completed his doctoral work in Feng Zhang’s lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where his research centered on novel CRISPR enzymes for applications in genome editing, therapeutics, and diagnostics. In recognition of his technology developments, Dr. Abudayyeh was recognized as Technology Review TR35 Innovators, 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 in Science and Health Care and Business Insider 30 under 30. Dr. Abudayyeh graduated from MIT in 2012 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and biological engineering, where he was a Henry Ford II Scholar and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar.

Jonathan Gootenberg, Ph.D.

McGovern Fellow

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Gootenberg earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and biological engineering at MIT. He received his PhD in Systems Biology from Harvard University, during which he conducted research with Aviv Regev and Feng Zhang at the McGovern Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. During his PhD, Gootenberg focused on the development of molecular technologies for treating and sensing disease states, crossing disciplines by utilizing novel computational techniques, microbiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology to uncover new CRISPR tools, including Cas12 and Cas13. He and his co-authors developed Cas13 into a toolbox with uses in fundamental research, therapeutics, and diagnostics. He is one of the first members of the McGovern Institute Fellows program, which supports the transition to independent research for exceptional recent PhD graduates, and has received multiple awards, including Forbes 30 Under 30 and Business Insider 30 and Under.