CBE Seminar Series: “Biology by Design: From Directed Evolution to Autonomous Experimentation” (Huimin Zhao, UIUC)
September 9 at 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Organizer
Venue
Abstract:
Synthetic biology aims to apply engineering principles to design novel or improved biological systems for a wide range of biotechnological and biomedical applications. However, due to the complexity of biology, it remains an overwhelming challenge to rationally design biological systems with desired features. In this talk, I will reflect my over three-decades of academic journey to tackle this challenge and highlight the paradigm shift from directed evolution to autonomous experimentation. Specifically, I will discuss a few representative case studies, including: (a) design and evolutionary engineering of artificial photoenzymes with new-to-nature reactivity for asymmetric synthesis; (b) development of new artificial intelligence (AI) models for enzyme property prediction, enzyme engineering, and metabolic engineering; and (c) design of an AI-powered self-driving biofoundry for protein engineering, pathway engineering, and metabolic engineering. I envision a future where autonomous experimentation, enabled by seamless integration of synthetic biology, AI, and biofoundry/robotics, accelerates basic and applied biological research for bioeconomy.
Speaker
Huimin Zhao
Steven L. Miller Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), director of NSF AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis (moleculemaker.org), NSF iBioFoundry (ibiofoundry.illinois.edu), and NSF Global Center for Biofoundry Applications (gcba.illinois.edu), and Editor in Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology. He received his B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992 and his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1998. Prior to joining UIUC in 2000, he was a project leader at the Dow Chemical Company. Dr. Zhao has authored and co-authored over 490 research articles and over 30 issued and pending patent applications. In addition, he has given over 570 plenary, keynote, or invited lectures. Forty (40) of his former graduate students and postdocs became professors or principal investigators around the world. Dr. Zhao received numerous research and teaching awards and honors such as ECI Enzyme Engineering Award and NSF CAREER Award. His primary research interests are in the development and applications of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and laboratory automation tools to address society’s most daunting challenges in health, energy, and sustainability.