James Carothers, at left, who was previously interim chair for the department, presents Huimin Zhao with the Chair’s Distinguished Lecture plaque.
The Department of Chemical Engineering welcomed Dr. Huimin Zhao, Steven L. Miller Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, for the Chair’s Distinguished Lecture in May.
Dr. Zhao is a leading expert in synthetic biology, a field that uses engineering principles to both improve and create new biological systems (think: cells and tissues). These biological systems can then be used to advance healthcare, medicine, sustainability and other fields. But this is much, much easier said than done.
“Due to the complexity of biology,” Dr. Zhao writes, “it remains an overwhelming challenge to rationally design biological systems with desired features.”
Zhao’s lecture drew on his more than thirty years of experience tackling this challenge and described a shift in the field from using directed evolution (which mimics natural selection in a lab setting) towards autonomous experimentation. He detailed several case studies from his work, including two that exemplified the use of artificial intelligence in the lab. “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,” Zhao writes.
Synthetic biology is a strong area of research in UW Chemical Engineering, with James Carothers and Jorge Marchand leading work in this area. “Critical to this work is the integration of computation, systems biology, and experimental work that enables predictive design of biological systems,” Elizabeth Nance, department chair, says. “This approach is both inspired by and well aligned with the innovation showcased in Dr. Zhao’s research.”
Huimin Zhao headshot.
In addition to his work as a professor at the University of Illinois, Zhao is the director of three centers supported by the National Science Foundation: the AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis, iBioFoundry and the Global Center for Biofoundry Applications. He is also the Editor in Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology.
“The Chair’s Distinguished Lecture is a venue to recognize the very top Chemical Engineering researchers in the world and allow our community an opportunity to hear about their scholarly work,” Nance says. “Dr. Zhao’s distinguished career and research record speaks for itself, and we were honored to both celebrate and recognize his impressive career thus far.”
Zhao received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992 and his doctoral degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold in 1998. He has authored and co-authored more than 480 research articles and more than thirty issued and pending patent applications. Forty of his former graduate students and postdocs became professors or principal investigators around the world. In 2019, Dr. Zhao received the Engineering Conference International Enzyme Engineering Award, which recognizes “outstanding achievements in the field of enzyme engineering,” according to the Engineering Conference International website. He has received numerous other research and teaching awards and honors.
Originally published May 21, 2026