Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the Flagship#Colleges and universities in ...

, 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 A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degree An academic degree is a qualification awarded to students upon successful completion of a course of study in higher education, usua ...

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

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

under the guidance of Frances Arnold. Prior to joining the

, he was a project leader at

Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastics ...

. He then joined the UIUC faculty in 2000. His lab focuses on using

protein engineering Protein engineering is the process of developing useful or valuable proteins. It is a young discipline, with much research taking place into the understanding of protein folding and recognition for protein design principles. It has been used to im ...

and

metabolic engineering Metabolic engineering is the practice of optimizing genetic and regulatory processes within cells to increase the cell's production of a certain substance. These processes are chemical networks that use a series of biochemical reactions and enzym ...

to harness the power of

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

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 an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

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

ACS Catalysis ''ACS Catalysis'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 2011 by the American Chemical Society. The journal covers research on all aspects of heterogeneous, homogeneous, and biocatalysis. The editor-in-chief is Cathleen Crudd ...

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