PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jonathan Gootenberg

Jonathan Gootenberg is a biologist at Harvard Medical School who builds genome-editing tools and machine learning methods, and his lab works with Google DeepMind's Co-Scientist on aging research. As a Harvard graduate student, he was co-first author of the 2017 Science study that introduced SHERLOCK, a CRISPR-based diagnostic able to detect a single molecule of target RNA or DNA. After a systems biology PhD in 2018, he and Omar Abudayyeh became the first McGovern Fellows at MIT in 2019, and he joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 2023. His recent machine learning work includes generative distribution embeddings, presented at NeurIPS 2025, and in May 2026 Google DeepMind described how Co-Scientist proposed genetic leads for his lab's work on reversing cellular aging. Today he is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, co-leads the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg lab, and has co-founded companies including Sherlock Biosciences and Tome Biosciences.

Now at
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2010–2013

    Mathematics and bioengineering at MIT

    He grows up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. In 2010, he meets Omar Abudayyeh in an MIT bioengineering class, and he earns a B.S. in mathematics and biological engineering at MIT in 2013.

  2. 2017

    The SHERLOCK diagnostic

    In April 2017, as a Harvard graduate student, he is co-first author with Abudayyeh of a Science study introducing SHERLOCK, a CRISPR-based tool that can detect a single molecule of target RNA or DNA, including Zika virus in patient blood or urine. Forbes names him to its 30 Under 30 healthcare list in 2017.

  3. 2018

    A Harvard systems biology PhD

    He completes a PhD in systems biology at Harvard in 2018, working with Aviv Regev and Feng Zhang at the McGovern Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His thesis work helps identify RNA-guided enzymes of the Cas13 family, which lead to the REPAIR RNA-editing system.

  4. 2019–2023

    Inaugural McGovern Fellow at MIT

    In January 2019, he and Abudayyeh become the first fellows of MIT's McGovern Institute Fellows Program, which gives selected postdocs space, time and support to start their own research. They run a joint lab there for four years, and MIT Technology Review names him to its 35 Under 35 list in 2021.

  5. 2023

    Faculty post at Harvard Medical School

    In 2023, he becomes an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a staff scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Center for Virology and Vaccine Research. He and Abudayyeh run the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg Lab at Harvard, with sites in Boston's Longwood Medical Area and Cambridgeport.

  6. 2025–2026

    Generative distribution embeddings

    He coauthors "Generative Distribution Embeddings" at NeurIPS 2025, a framework that lifts autoencoders to the space of distributions and applies them to six problems in computational biology. A second machine learning paper with his lab, "Count Bridges Enable Modeling and Deconvolving Transcriptomic Data", appears at ICLR 2026.

  7. May 2026

    Co-Scientist and cellular aging

    In May 2026, Google DeepMind reports that his lab uses Co-Scientist in its aging research: the system scans tens of thousands of papers, proposes more than 20 genetic factors to test, and lab tests validate a couple of them. It also cuts the analysis of the lab's screening data from up to six months to a few days.

  8. As of October 2026

    Co-PI of the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg lab

    He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and co-PI of the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg lab, which applies nucleic acid medicines, molecular tools and machine learning methods to genetic disease, cancer and aging. His co-founded companies include Sherlock Biosciences and Proof Diagnostics, both since acquired, along with Tome Biosciences and Terrain Biosciences.

Career

  1. Since 2023Harvard UniversityAssistant Professor of Medicine
  2. Since 2023Beth Israel Deaconess Medical CenterStaff Scientist
  3. NowHarvard Medical SchoolCo-PI
  4. 2019–2023Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMcGovern Fellow
  5. Sherlock BiosciencesCo-founder
  6. Proof DiagnosticsCo-founder
  7. Tome BiosciencesCo-founder
  8. Terrain BiosciencesCo-founder

Education

  1. 2018Harvard UniversityPhD
  2. 2013Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBS

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Harvard University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Harvard University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Harvard University. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. 44% of AI career moves go from one university to anotherIncludes Harvard University. We estimate how 26,439 AI career moves link universities, companies, labs, nonprofits and government research centers, with decade counts, net flows and the top paths.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Jonathan Gootenberg yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. A Jewish American and a Palestinian American are tackling science’s toughest challenges bostonglobe.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Jonathan Gootenberg – Center for Virology and Vaccine Research (CVVR) cvvr.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Scientists unveil CRISPR-based diagnostic platform | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Jonathan Gootenberg, Ph.D. | HSCRB hscrb.harvard.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Welcoming the first McGovern Fellows - MIT McGovern Institute mcgovern.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Generative Distribution Embeddings: Lifting autoencoders to the space of distributions for multiscale representation learning papers.nips.cc. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Gootenberg, Jonathan S. | ML Anthology mlanthology.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Co-Scientist: Accelerating research on cellular aging — Google DeepMind deepmind.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Co-Scientist: A multi-agent AI partner to accelerate research — Google DeepMind deepmind.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Jonathan Gootenburg - Foresight Institute foresight.org. Checked 20 October 2026.