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Caltech Together: Silicon Valley

July 17, 2025 at 5:30 pm7:00 pm PDT

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“An AI-powered Biofoundry”: Join Us for a Webinar and Post-Event Social

Thursday, July 17
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Online

If you would like to attend, register in advance for this webinar here.

Following the webinar, join us for a post-event social via Zoom, where you’ll have the opportunity to mingle with fellow alumni and speak with the presenter.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Peter Tong

“An AI-powered Biofoundry”
By Huimin Zhao

Naturally occurring and engineered biological systems hold transformative potential for addressing global challenges. Yet traditional methods for discovering and engineering these systems remain slow, costly, and inconsistent.

To bridge this gap, my lab has been developing an AI-powered self-driving biofoundry. It accelerates every stage of biological design, from discovery to deployment.

In this talk, I will explain the architecture and capabilities of the biofoundry. Then I will highlight a few applications, including:

• High-throughput design and construction of plasmids, an essential genetic tool in biology;
• Rapid discovery of novel bioactive compounds from soil bacteria potentially for antimicrobial and anticancer drugs;
• AI-powered autonomous pathway engineering; and
• AI-powered autonomous protein engineering.

Finally, I will discuss our efforts to empower researchers worldwide to harness AI-powered self-driving biofoundries. The goal is to turn the promise of biological engineering into scalable, equitable solutions.

About the Speaker

Huimin Zhao holds the Steven L. Miller Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and is a professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He leads several high-impact initiatives, including the NSF AI Institute for Molecular Synthesis (moleculemaker.org), the NSF iBioFoundry (ibiofoundry.illinois.edu), and the NSF Global Center for Reliable and Scalable Biofoundries. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology.

Huimin earned his BS in Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China, and his PhD in Chemistry from Caltech, where he conducted research under Frances Arnold. Before joining UIUC, he worked as a project leader at the Industrial Biotechnology Laboratory of Dow Chemical Company.

He has authored or co-authored over 460 peer-reviewed articles and is listed on more than 30 issued or pending patent applications. A sought-after speaker, he has delivered over 530 plenary, keynote, and invited lectures around the world. His dedication to mentorship is reflected in the success of his trainees—38 former graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have gone on to become professors or principal investigators globally.

Huimin’s research focuses on developing and integrating synthetic biology, machine learning, and lab automation to address critical challenges in health, energy, and sustainability. His work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the SIMB Charles Scott Award, AIChE Daniel I.C. Wang Award, AIChE Food, Pharmaceutical & Bioengineering Division Award, ECI Enzyme Engineering Award, ACS Marvin Johnson Award, SIMB Charles Thom Award, and the NSF CAREER Award.

Our Alumni Volunteers‍

The following alumni work together to serve you: Avni Gandhi, Dave Adler, Jane Frommer, Mike Klein, Susan Huynh, and Peter Tong.

Details

Date:
July 17, 2025
Time:
5:30 pm — 7:00 pm PDT
Event Category:
Website:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ckRgtz4ESJq_wredI5qNUQ#/registration

Venue

Online

Organizer

Peter Tong (MS ’81, PhD ’85)