J. Keith Joung is an American pathologist and molecular biologist who holds the Robert B. Colvin Endowed Chair in Pathology at

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvar ...

and is Professor of Pathology at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

. He is a leading figure in the field of genome editing and has pioneered the development of designer nucleases and sensitive off-target detection methods.

Education

In 1987, Joung graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

with a bachelor's degree in biochemical sciences. He received an M.D. from

and a Ph.D. in genetics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Career

Joung is most well known for his work in

genome editing Genome editing, or genome engineering, or gene editing, is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified or replaced in the genome of a living organism. Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly insert ge ...

and has contributed to the development of designer nucleases through protein engineering and assays for off-target detection. * In the mid-2000s, his research was focused on creating

zinc finger nuclease Zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) are artificial restriction enzymes generated by fusing a zinc finger DNA-binding domain to a nuclease, DNA-cleavage domain. Zinc finger domains can be engineered to target specific desired DNA sequences and this enab ...

tools for biological research and gene therapy. He was the leader and founder of the

Zinc Finger A zinc finger is a small protein structural motif that is characterized by the coordination of one or more zinc ions (Zn2+) which stabilizes the fold. The term ''zinc finger'' was originally coined to describe the finger-like appearance of a ...

Consortium and co-authored a study on Oligomerized Pool Engineering (OPEN), a publicly available strategy for rapidly constructing multi-finger arrays. More recently, he contributed to the development of TAL effector,

TALENs Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN) are restriction enzymes that can be engineered to cut specific sequences of DNA. They are made by fusing a TAL effector DNA-binding domain to a DNA cleavage domain (a nuclease which cuts DN ...

, and the RNA-guided CRISPR/Cas9 system. In addition to demonstrating the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, an ...

through the zebrafish model, he pioneered the creation of tools such as GUIDE-seq and CIRCLE-seq to detect nuclease off-targets within the genome. In 2016, his group became one of the first to report engineered high-fidelity CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases (HF1) with no detectable off-target effects. He is one of the scientific co-founders of Editas Medicine, along with

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has pioneered work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, wit ...

Feng Zhang Feng Zhang (; born October 22, 1981) is a Chinese-born American biochemist. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the Departments of Brain and Co ...

, George Church, and David Liu. He is also a co-founder of Beam Therapeutics and Verve Therapeutics. He received the

Ho-Am Prize in Medicine The Ho-Am Prize in Medicine was established in 1990 by Kun-Hee Lee, the Chairman of Samsung, to honour the late Chairman, Lee Byung-chul, the founder of the company. The Ho-Am Prize in Medicine is one of six prizes awarded annually, covering the ...

in 2022 and the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Outstanding Achievement Award in 2023, the society's highest honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joung, J Keith Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American pathologists Genome editing Harvard College alumni Harvard Medical School alumni Harvard Medical School faculty Physicians of Massachusetts General Hospital Recipients of the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine