Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as well as the leader of the Biosystems Design research theme in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. His research focuses on directed evolution, metabolic engineering, bioinformatics and high throughput technologies.

Life

He received his B.S. in biology from the

University of Science and Technology of China The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is a public university in Hefei, China. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education of the People' ...

and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1998 from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

under the guidance of

Frances Arnold Frances Hamilton Arnold (born July 25, 1956) is an American chemical engineer and Nobel Laureate. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). I ...

. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he was a project leader at

Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...

. He then joined the UIUC faculty in 2000. His lab focuses on using protein engineering and metabolic engineering to harness the power of

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary field of science that focuses on living systems and organisms. It applies engineering principles to develop new biological parts, devices, and systems or to redesign existing systems found in nat ...

over four principal themes, industrial bioenergy, drug discovery and development, gene therapy, synthetic biology and immunotherapy. He is a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He serves as an associate editor of ACS Catalysis.

References

External links

The Huimin Zhao Research Group
Living people 21st-century American chemists University of Science and Technology of China alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Dow Chemical Company employees Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Synthetic biologists Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-chemist-stub