Tom Knight is an American
synthetic biologist and
computer engineer
Computer engineering (CE, CoE, or CpE) is a branch of engineering specialized in developing computer hardware and software.
It integrates several fields of electrical engineering, electronics engineering and computer science.
Computer engine ...
, who was formerly a senior research scientist at the
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...
, a part of the
MIT School of Engineering
The MIT School of Engineering (SoE) is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state i ...
.
He now works at the synthetic biology company
Ginkgo Bioworks, which he cofounded in 2008.
Career
Work in electrical engineering and computer science
Tom Knight arrived at MIT when he was fourteen.
Even though he only started his undergraduate studies at the regular age of 18, he took classes in
computer programming
Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...
and
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...
during
high school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
because he lived close to the university. He built early hardware such as
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...
interfaces for host #6 on the network, some of the first
bitmapped displays, the
ITS time sharing system,
Lisp machines
Lisp Machines, Inc. was a company formed in 1979 by Richard Greenblatt of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machines. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
By 1979, the Lisp Machine Project at MIT, originated and he ...
(he was also instrumental in releasing a version of the operating system for the Lisp machine under a
BSD license
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...
), the
Connection Machine
The Connection Machine (CM) is a member of a series of massively parallel supercomputers sold by Thinking Machines Corporation. The idea for the Connection Machine grew out of doctoral research on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann arch ...
, and parallel symbolic processing computer systems.
In 1967 Knight wrote the original kernel for the
ITS operating system, as well as the combination of command processor and debugger that was used as its top-level user interface. ITS was the dominant operating system for first
Project MAC
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in ...
and later the
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence L ...
and
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. ITS ran on PDP-6 and, later, PDP-10 computers.
In 1968, Knight designed and supervised the construction of the first PDP-10
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...
interfaces with
Bob Metcalfe
Robert "Bob" Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an American engineer and entrepreneur who contributed to the development of the internet in the 1970s. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com, and formulated Metcalfe's law, which descr ...
.
Knight developed a system to use standard television sets as a terminal interface to the PDP-10.
In 1972, Knight designed one of the first semiconductor memory-based bitmap displays. This was later commercialized and led directly to the development of the Bedford Computer Systems newspaper layout system and influenced many of the bitmapped display devices available today. That same year, along with Jeff Rubin, Knight designed and implemented a network file system that provided the first transparent remote file access over the ARPANET.
In 1974, Knight designed and implemented the prototype version of the MIT
Lisp Machine processor, with the production version following in 1976. The Lisp Machine was a microprogrammed machine, tuned for high-performance emulation of other instruction sets. The design of the Lisp Machine was directly implemented by both
Symbolics
Symbolics, Inc., is a privately held American computer software maker that acquired the assets of the former manufacturing company of the identical name and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp (programming language), Lisp sy ...
and
LMI and was the basis of all of their computers. Texas Instruments implemented
surface mount and single-chip versions of the architecture in 1983 and 1987, respectively.
Knight collaborated with Jack Holloway in designing and implementing the
Chaosnet, a re-engineered version of the Xerox 3 Mbit/s
Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
. In 1975 this network became the first local area network on MIT's campus. Chaosnet's innovation of a preamble bit string for packets was eventually incorporated into the 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standard.
In 1980, Knight participated in the development of the
Connection Machine
The Connection Machine (CM) is a member of a series of massively parallel supercomputers sold by Thinking Machines Corporation. The idea for the Connection Machine grew out of doctoral research on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann arch ...
architecture and its original implementation. Other notable and diverse accomplishments during the 1980s included the creation of the first
silicon retina in 1981, the creation of a single-chip optical mouse, the design of the Cross-Omega interconnection network architecture, and the design of the Transit multiprocessor interconnection architecture.
During the early 1990s, Knight was involved in the formation of
Permabit and of
Exa Corporation and the architecture of the latter's initial version of its FX/1 lattice gas parallel fluid flow computer. Advances included using over-relaxation techniques to make 10x algorithmic improvements in lattice gas computations, landmark CFD accuracies, and correction of misconceptions about the origin of fluid turbulence in simple two-dimensional flow situations. Within the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he led the Abacus SIMD project, worked on
VLSI micro displays, and made advances in the field of
adiabatic (reversible) computing.
Work in synthetic biology
It was also during this period that Knight's interests in biological systems began. Inspired in part by the work of
Harold J. Morowitz, a Yale physicist and biologist, Knight studied biochemistry, genetics, and cellular biology, and set up a biology lab within the
MIT AI Laboratory. In this lab he created the concept of the
BioBrick
BioBrick parts are DNA sequences which conform to a Restriction enzyme, restriction-enzyme assembly standard. These building blocks are used to design and assemble larger synthetic biological circuits from individual parts and combinations of part ...
plasmid DNA part and began creating a library of BioBricks that could be used to simplify the
genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genet ...
of
Escherichia coli
''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Escherichia'' that is commonly fo ...
cells. Today, BioBricks form the basis of the enormous annual
iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition
and Knight is sometimes referred to as the godfather of synthetic biology.
Knight co-founded
Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company. Ginkgo Bioworks went public in 2021.
References
External links
Knight LabCurrent webpage at MITThe Readme for the release of an early Lisp Machine OS under a BSD licenseHome page for the BioBricks FoundationWebpage for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competitionGinkgo BioWorksTom Knight's Ginkgo Bioworks Seeks To Reinvent Moore's Law Through Biochemistry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Tom
Lisp (programming language) people
Living people
Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff
Year of birth missing (living people)
Synthetic biologists
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni