Steven Benner left his distinguished faculty position at the University of Florida in 2004 to found The Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology and the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, after starting his career at Harvard and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His research seeks knowledge about the ancient origin of life, and looks for the essential, universal features of life by studying from four different directions. with the NASA Astrobiology Institute, by developing tests for life on other planets, by using Paleogenetics to resurect and study ancient proteins that may have belonged to long-extinct ancestors, by recreating pre-biotic chemistry to explain the chemical origin of life, and by synthesizing an artificially expanded genetic alphabet led to a revolution in our understanding of the structure of DNA. 

He started his graduate work at Harvard under perhaps the most famous name in Organic Synthesis, Bob Woodward, who passed away, continuing and receiving his PhD under Frank Westheimer. Dr. Benner's first faculty position was at Harvard, but he was frustrated by the requirements of the NIH grant reviewers. Benner was the first researcher to synthesize a gene, creating the field of synthetic biology.