Professor Huimin Zhao has received the Dongjin Distinguished Award, presented by Seoul National University and sponsored by Dongjin Semichem, a Korean semiconductor company. The award is given to recognize world-renowned researchers.
Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering and professor of chemistry, biochemistry and bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is director of the National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis, iBioFoundry, and Global Center for Biofoundry Applications, and Editor in Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology.
A leading researcher in synthetic biology, Zhao develops and applies genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and laboratory automation tools to design improved or novel proteins, pathways and genomes for biotechnological and biomedical applications. He joined Illinois in 2000 after earning his Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech and working in industrial biotechnology at Dow Chemical, and he has received numerous national and international honors for his contributions to education, bioengineering and synthetic biology.
Zhao will present a lecture and receive the award at a ceremony later this month in Seoul.