James Collins, Ph.D

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science as well as Professor of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, has been elected to all three national academies—the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine—and has received a number of awards recognizing his work, including the Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award. Dr. Collins has been a Rhodes Scholar, a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Dr. Collins is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Collins is a co-founder of Synlogic, Sherlock Biosciences, Cellarity and Phare Bio, and serves on the SAB of multiple companies including Danaher and Shape Therapeutics. Dr. Collins has a PhD in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford, and an AB in Physics from the College of the Holy Cross.