Erik Winfree

Erik Winfree
Born (1969-09-26) September 26, 1969 (age 55)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
Bioengineering
InstitutionsCalifornia Institute of Technology
ThesisAlgorithmic self-assembly of DNA (1998)
Doctoral advisorJohn J. Hopfield

Erik Winfree (born September 26, 1969[1]) is an American applied computer scientist, bioengineer, and professor at California Institute of Technology.[2] He is a leading researcher into DNA computing and DNA nanotechnology.[3][4][5]

In 1998, Winfree in collaboration with Nadrian Seeman published the creation of two-dimensional lattices of DNA tiles using the "double crossover" motif. These tile-based structures provided the capability to implement DNA computing, which was demonstrated by Winfree and Paul Rothemund in 2004, and for which they shared the 2006 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology.[3][6]

In 1999, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[7]

He received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Chicago in 1991 and a Doctor of Philosophy from the California Institute of Technology in 1998.[8] For his doctoral studies, he enrolled in the Computation and Neural Systems program at Caltech under advisors John Hopfield and Al Barr.[9] He was a Lewis Thomas Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Biology at Princeton University.[10] He was a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. His father Arthur Winfree, a theoretical biologist, was also a MacArthur Fellow.

  1. ^ "Erik Winfree resume" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  2. ^ "Erik Winfree's homepage". Archived from the original on 2017-12-10. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
  3. ^ a b Pelesko, John A. (2007). Self-assembly: the science of things that put themselves together. New York: Chapman & Hall/CRC. pp. 201, 242, 259. ISBN 978-1-58488-687-7.
  4. ^ ""Biomolecular Computing" colloquium abstract". Archived from the original on 2017-01-08. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
  5. ^ "Technology Review's 1999 TR35". Archived from the original on 2011-03-29. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
  6. ^ Seeman, Nadrian C. (June 2004). "Nanotechnology and the double helix". Scientific American. 290 (6): 64–75. Bibcode:2004SciAm.290f..64S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0604-64. PMID 15195395. Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
  7. ^ "1999 Young Innovators Under 35". Technology Review. 1999. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  8. ^ "Erik Winfree - Biology and Biological Engineering". www.bbe.caltech.edu. Archived from the original on 2024-05-19. Retrieved 2024-10-08.
  9. ^ Erik Winfree's bio at Caltech Department of Computer Science Archived June 8, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "Erik Winfree bio at Harvard". Archived from the original on 2020-05-03. Retrieved 2010-04-23.