Date of Birth: 
About Steven A. Benner
- Steven Albert Benner (born October 23, 1954) has been a professor at Harvard University, ETH Zurich, and the University of Florida where he was the V.T.
- & Louise Jackson Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.
- In 2005, he founded The Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology (TWIST) and the Foundation For Applied Molecular Evolution.
- Benner has also founded the companies EraGen Biosciences and Firebird BioMolecular Sciences LLC. Benner and his colleagues were the first to synthesize a gene, beginning the field of synthetic biology.
- He was instrumental in establishing the field of paleogenetics.
- He is interested in the origin of life and the chemical conditions and processes needed to produce RNA.
- Benner has worked with NASA to develop detectors for alien genetic materials, using the definition of life developed by the NASA Exobiology Discipline Working Group in 1992, “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”.
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