On September 19, 2024, Prof. Huimin Zhao of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) attend the Nankai Organic Chemistry Lecture invited by the State Key Laboratory of Elemento-organic Chemistry. Prof. Zhao interacted with teachers and students of the Key Laboratory, and delivered an academic report entitled "Expanding the Boundary of Biocatalysis: From Directed Evolution to AI-enabled Autonomous Experiment" in Shixian Building. The lecture was chaired by Prof. Qian Peng of the Key Laboratory, and nearly 150 teachers and students of the Key Laboratory and the College of Chemistry participated in the academic exchange.
Before the report, Shoufei Zhu, vice president of Nankai University, presented the certificate of "Nankai Organic Chemistry Lecture" to Prof. Zhao on behalf of the Key Laboratory. In the report session, Prof. Zhao first discussed the new methodology for the synthesis of fine chemicals by exploring the synergy between enzymatic catalysis and non-enzymatic catalysis, and introduced the new strategy of combining photocatalysis and biocatalysis for non-biological transformation. In addition, he demonstrated the research and development of new artificial intelligence and machine learning tools for synthesis planning and laboratory automation tools for enzyme system discovery, which will greatly accelerate the development of biocatalysts and should be used in fields related to human health, energy and sustainable development. After the report, Prof. Zhao had a wonderful interaction with the teachers and students present, and he thanked Nankai Chemistry for its contribution to cultivating students in his group. Prof. Zhao's report not only showed the fields of enzyme catalysis, machine learning and automation equipment, but also made everyone present feel the power of new technology of contemporary science and technology, which made teachers and students present benefit a lot.
Prof. Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), director of NSF AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis (moleculemaker.org), director of NSF iBioFoundry, 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 under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Dr. Frances Arnold. Prior to joining UIUC in 2000, he was a project leader at the Industrial Biotechnology Laboratory of the Dow Chemical Company. He was promoted to full professor in 2008. Prof. Zhao has authored and co-authored over 450 research articles and over 30 issued and pending patent applications. In addition, he has given over 500 plenary, keynote, or invited lectures. Thirty-seven (37) of his former graduate students and postdocs became professors or principal investigators around the world. Prof. Zhao received numerous research and teaching awards and honors such as SIMB Charles D. Scott Award, AIChE Daniel I.C. Wang Award, AIChE FP&B Division Award, ECI Enzyme Engineering Award, ACS Marvin Johnson Award, and SIMB Charles Thom Award. His primary research interests are in the development and applications of synthetic biology, machine learning, and laboratory automation tools to address society’s most daunting challenges in health, energy, and sustainability.
