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Draft:Jason W. Chin

  • Comment: A lot of text here is unsourced, whereas WP:BLP requires all facts that can be challenged to be have a reliable source, with inline citation.
    Some wording tends towards the promotional: "renowned", "pioneer", "garnered" which typically get churned out by AI / LLM to cheer up the user, but are not suitable for an encyclopedia. ChrysGalley (talk) 22:18, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Jason W. Chin
FRS FMedSci
Alma materUniversity of Oxford (BA)
Yale University (PhD)
Known forGenetic code expansion
Whole-genome recoding
Syn61
AwardsFrancis Crick Medal (2009)
Corday-Morgan Prize (2010)
EMBO Gold Medal (2010)
Louis-Jeantet Young Investigator Career Award (2011)
Sackler International Prize (2019)
Meyerhof Medal (2021)
Scientific career
FieldsSynthetic biology
Chemical biology
Synthetic genomics
InstitutionsEllison Institute of Technology
University of Oxford
Alanna Schepartz
Websiteeit.org/people/jason-chin

Jason William Chin FRS FMedSci is a British biochemist and synthetic biologist. He is executive director of the Generative Biology Institute at the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, and a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at the University of Oxford.[1] From 2003 to 2025 he was a programme leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) in Cambridge, where he led the Centre for Chemical and Synthetic Biology.[2]

Early life and education

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Chin grew up in the United Kingdom. He studied chemistry at the University of Oxford, where he undertook undergraduate research with professor John Sutherland on cephalosporin biosynthesis.[3]

He completed a doctorate at Yale University in 2001 as a Fulbright Scholar, supervised by professor Alanna Schepartz, and subsequently held a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute with professor Peter Schultz.[3] It was at Scripps that he began developing methods for expanding the genetic code of eukaryotic cells.[3]

Career

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Chin joined MRC-LMB as a group leader in 2003. He became head of the Centre for Chemical and Synthetic Biology in 2010, and joint head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry in 2018.[2] He also held a professorship at the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry and was a Professorial Fellow and Director of Studies in Biochemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge.[2]

In April 2023, he was appointed a non-executive director of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) startup board.[4] He was reappointed to the full DSIT departmental board in April 2024.[5]

In 2025, he moved to Oxford to establish and lead the Generative Biology Institute at the Ellison Institute of Technology, where he holds a joint appointment as professor of chemistry and chemical biology at the University of Oxford.[1]

Research

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Genetic code expansion

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Chin's laboratory developed orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs that enable non-canonical amino acids to be incorporated into proteins at defined positions in response to reassigned codons, without cross-reacting with the host cell's endogenous translational machinery. Writing in Nature in 2023, journalist Diana Kwon described researchers in this field, including Chin, as working to "endow proteins with chemistries they've never had before".[6] Work from his group produced systems capable of incorporating three and then five distinct non-canonical amino acids into a single polypeptide chain.[7][8]

Whole-genome recoding

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In 2019, the Chin laboratory reported the creation of Syn61, a variant of E. coli whose entire four-megabase genome had been synthesised from scratch with three codons removed from every annotated gene.[9] The Guardian described it as the "world's first living organism with fully redesigned DNA", reporting that independent researchers characterised it as taking synthetic genomics "to a new level".[10] The Financial Times reported that the work set records for both synthetic genome size and the number of coding changes made.[11] A News & Views commentary by Blount and Ellis published in the same issue of Nature described the work as "a landmark in the emerging field of synthetic genomics".[12]

In 2021, the laboratory demonstrated that Syn61-derived strains could be made resistant to viral infection and used to synthesise polymers from entirely non-natural building blocks.[13]

Later work

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Subsequent work extended the recoding approach to Syn57, published in 2025, in which seven codons were eliminated through over 101,000 substitution events, leaving an organism that encodes the canonical amino acids with 55 codons.[14] Other work from the laboratory demonstrated ribosomal incorporation of backbone-modified monomers into proteins in living cells[15] and the creation of a synthetic orthogonal replication system for directed evolution of translational components.[16]

Awards and honours

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Chin was elected a Fellow of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2010, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016,[20] and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022.[17]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 "Jason Chin". Oxford Kavli Institute for NanoScience Discovery. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 "Jason Chin". MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Pain, Elisabeth (17 September 2010). "Expanding the Genetic Code". Science Careers. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  4. ↑ "The stars align for science and tech as non-execs are appointed to the DSIT Start-Up Board". GOV.UK. 21 April 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  5. ↑ "DSIT bolsters its leadership team to drive UK's science and tech superpower mission". GOV.UK. 23 April 2024. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  6. ↑ Kwon, Diana (27 June 2023). "How scientists are hacking the genetic code to give proteins new powers". Nature. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  7. ↑ Dunkelmann, David L.; et al. (2020). "Engineered triply orthogonal pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs". Nature Chemistry. 12: 535–544. doi:10.1038/s41557-020-0472-x.
  8. ↑ Beattie, Andrew T.; et al. (2023). "Quintuply orthogonal pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNAPyl pairs". Nature Chemistry. 15: 948–957. doi:10.1038/s41557-023-01232-y.
  9. ↑ Fredens, Julius; Wang, Kaihang; de la Torre, Daniel; Funke, Louise F. H.; Robertson, Wesley E.; Chin, Jason W.; et al. (2019). "Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome". Nature. 569 (7757): 514–518. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1192-5. PMID 31092918.
  10. ↑ "Cambridge scientists create world's first living organism with fully redesigned DNA". The Guardian. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  11. ↑ "Scientists create living organism with redesigned DNA". Financial Times. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  12. ↑ Blount, Benjamin A.; Ellis, Tom (2019). "Construction of an Escherichia coli genome with fewer codons sets records". Nature. 569: 492–494. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01584-x.
  13. ↑ Robertson, Wesley E.; et al. (2021). "Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis". Science. 372 (6546): 1057–1062. doi:10.1126/science.abg3029.
  14. ↑ Robertson, Wesley E.; et al. (2025). "Escherichia coli with a 57-codon genetic code". Science. 390 (6771) eady4368. doi:10.1126/science.ady4368.
  15. ↑ Dunkelmann, David L.; et al. (2024). "Adding α,α-disubstituted and β-linked monomers to the genetic code of an organism". Nature. 625: 603–612. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06897-6.
  16. ↑ Tian, Rongzhen; et al. (2024). "Establishing a synthetic orthogonal replication system enables accelerated evolution in E. coli". Science. 383: 421–426. doi:10.1126/science.adk1281.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 "Professor Jason Chin FMedSci FRS". Royal Society. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  18. ↑ "Corday-Morgan Prizes — previous winners". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  19. ↑ "EMBO Gold Medalists — recipients". EMBO. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
  20. ↑ "Professor Jason Chin". Academy of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
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