713: Combining Chemistry and Biology to Develop New Research Tools and Therapeutics - Dr. David Liu

Dr. David R. Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor and Director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, vice-chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. In addition, he is the founder or co-founder of several biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, Exo Therapeutics, Chroma Medicine, Resonance Medicine, and Nvelop Therapeutics. David’s research integrates components of biological evolution with chemistry to enable the development of new types of therapeutics and to better study biology. Through chemistry, they can change the structure of a molecule in order to change its function in anticipated ways. They also harness the power of cycles of natural selection to evolve molecules with desired tailor-made properties. Outside of science, David’s hobbies include photography, making wooden vessels using a wood lathe, growing bonsai trees, and exploring electronic art and other homemade art projects. He enjoys blending creativity and intellectual pursuits to create something surprising and beautiful. He completed his undergraduate education at Harvard College, majoring in chemistry. He was awarded his PhD in organic chemistry from UC Berkeley, and he joined the faculty at Harvard University afterwards. He has been an HHMI investigator since 2005. Over the course of his career, David has received numerous awards and accolades, including being named the 2022 King Faisal Prize Laureate in Medicine and receipt of the Ronald Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry, the American Chemical Society David Perlman Award, ACS Chemical Biology Award, the American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, the Arthur Cope Young Scholar Award, and other prestigious awards for his research and teaching. In 2016 and 2020, he was named one of the Top 20 Translational Researchers in the world by Nature Biotechnology, and he was named one of Nature’s 10 researchers in 2022. In addition, he is an elected Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In this interview, David shares more about his life and science.