2023年10月9日下午15：10，美国伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校赵惠民教授作为“名师讲坛”嘉宾，在H301为学院师生作了题为“Synthetic Biology 2.0: the Dawn of a New Era”的精彩学术报告。本次报告由黎书华经理主持，黎经理首先介绍了赵惠民教授的简历和学术成就，并代表学院向赵惠民教授颁发了“名师讲坛”纪念铭牌。我院、生命科学学院和现代科学与应用工程学院的多个学科的老师及员工参加了报告会。

报告开始，赵惠民教授从合成生物学的发展历程展开，详细介绍了用于途径工程和蛋白质工程的自动化生物工厂(BioAutomata)；用于酶工程的人工智能工具(ECNet)；用于酶功能预测的人工智能工具(CLEAN)；用于快速发现生物活性天然产物的自动化和可扩展平台(FAST-RiPP和FAST-NPS)；并介绍了具有新型催化功能的工程化光酶，强调了生物催化的优势及其对于绿色可持续化学的重要意义。最后，赵教授对合成生物学未来的发展方向进行了总结和展望。

在讨论环节，师生们踊跃提问，就AI/ML对于新酶发现与设计的引导、光酶催化的应用前景等问题进行了热烈的交流与讨论。

为促进青年教师成长，名师讲坛报告前后赵惠民教授还与我院多位青年教师进行了一对一的讨论和交流，青年教师们收获颇丰。

赵惠民教授简介：

Dr. 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), 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.

 Dr. Zhao has authored and co-authored over 420 research articles and over 30 issued and pending patent applications. In addition, he has given over 470 plenary, keynote, or invited lectures. Thirty-six (36) of his former graduate students and postdocs became professors or principal investigators around the world.

Dr. Zhao received numerous research and teaching awards and honors such as 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.