Endy received his bachelors and masters degrees from
Lehigh University and his
PhD from
Dartmouth College in 1997 for his work on
genetic engineering. Endy was a junior fellow for three years and later an Assistant Professor of
Biological Engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2002–2008). In 2008, he moved to
Stanford University, where he is an Associate Professor of
Bioengineering.
Research With
Thomas Knight,
Gerald Jay Sussman, Randy Rettberg, and others at MIT, Endy worked on
synthetic biology and the
engineering of standardized
biological components, devices, and parts, collectively known as
BioBricks. Endy is one of several founders of the
Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and invented an abstraction hierarchy for integrated genetic systems. Endy has been one of the early promoters of
open source biology, and helped start the
Biobricks Foundation, a non-profit organization that was established to support open-source biology. He was also a co-founder of the now-defunct Codon Devices, a
biotechnology startup company that aimed to commercialize
synthetic biology. In 2008,
Esquire magazine named Endy one of the most influential people of the
twenty-first century. Endy led a team of researchers that in March 2013 created the biological equivalent of a
transistor, which they dubbed a "
transcriptor". The invention was the final of the three components required to build a functional
biocomputer:
data storage, information transmission, and a basic
system of logic.
Federal service and policy work Endy helped launch the undergraduate bioengineering majors at MIT and Stanford. With Randy Rettberg and Tom Knight, Endy co-founded the
iGEM competition. In 2013, Endy was recognized as a Champion of Change by the White House. In February 2025, Endy testified before the
U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission. Endy is a founder and steering group member of the Build-a-Cell Initiative, an international collaboration investigating the creation of synthetic live cells. == Personal life ==