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Voytas Biography

Dr. Dan Voytas is a Professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development and the Director of the Center for Precision Plant Genomics at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Voytas graduated from Harvard College in 1984 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1990. He conducted postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he was a fellow of the Life Science Research Foundation. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota in 2008, Dr. Voytas was a professor at Iowa State University.  Dr. Voytas’ research focuses on developing methods to edit plant genomes.  His laboratory developed a powerful genome editing reagent – Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs) – which was heralded by Science magazine as one of the top ten scientific breakthroughs of 2012.  Dr. Voytas’ lab is currently optimizing methods for efficiently making targeted genome modifications in a variety of plant species to advance basic biology and develop new crop varieties.  In addition to his position at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Voytas co-founded Calyxt, an agricultural biotechnology company that used gene editing for crop improvement. In 2019, Dr. Voytas was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.