Chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Huimin Zhao was one of five 2024-2025 cohort members selected for the Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) JumpStart Program. This program, which was established in 2023, is designed to foster productive collaborations across the engineering and biology continuum and stimulate cancer research among accomplished scientists. Zhao is also affiliated with CCIL as a computational engineering and data science researcher in CCIL’s cancer technology and data science program.
Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering and holds professor positions in bioengineering, chemistry, biomedical and translational sciences in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and in the Institute of Genomic Biology. He researches the interface of synthetic biology, machine learning, and laboratory automation. Zhao’s research program focuses on four distinct yet related areas: foundational tool development, drug discovery and development, industrial biotechnology, and mammalian synthetic biology. In addition to his positions at Illinois, Zhao is director of the National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis and Editor in Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology, and he is leading a new NSF-funded biofoundry focusing on integrating synthetic biology, laboratory automation and A.I. to advance protein and cellular engineering.