Winston Timp

Winston Timp is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, with joint appointments in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, the Division of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine, and the Department of Genomic Medicine. His research focuses on developing sequencing technologies to explore biological systems and clinical diagnostics, integrating biophysics, molecular biology, and computational methods.

Education: Timp earned bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry, Chemistry, Physics, and Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001–2002), followed by a PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT (2007). He completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins, specializing in cancer epigenetics, before joining the faculty in 2013.

Research Interests: Timp’s lab develops tools for epigenome and genome analysis, including nanopore sequencing applications for diagnosing infectious diseases, characterizing cancer epigenomes, and sequencing complex genomes like those of hummingbirds and giant sequoias. His work bridges engineering and biology, addressing challenges in clinical diagnostics and fundamental biology.

Notable Contributions: He holds two patents, led grants totaling $5 million from the NIH, and contributed to the first complete human genome sequence. His team’s projects include the redwood genome, hummingbird transcriptome, and studies on CHO cell genomics.

Awards: Timp received the Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award (2016) and Discovery Awards (2015–2017) for collaborative research. He sits on editorial boards for Epigenetics Insights and is an affiliate of bioRxiv.

Lab Activities: The Timp Lab collaborates on projects like the Human Frontier Science Program grant on hummingbird metabolism and the NSF IUCRC on CHO cell epigenomics. Positions are available for postdocs, graduate students, and technicians.