Broad Institute

David R. Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor, director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, and vice-chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His major research interests include the engineering, evolution, and in vivo delivery of genome editing proteins such as base editors to study and treat genetic diseases, the evolution of proteins with novel therapeutic potential using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE) and the discovery of bioactive synthetic small molecules and synthetic polymers using DNA-templated organic synthesis and DNA-encoded libraries. Liu has been elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published >200 peer-reviewed papers and is the inventor of >80 issued U.S. patents. Liu received several distinctions for his research accomplishments including the Ronald Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry, the American Chemical Society (ACS) David Perlman Award, the ACS Chemical Biology Award, the ACS Pure Chemistry Award, the Arthur C. Cope Young Scholar Award, and has been recognized as an NIH Marshall Nirenberg Lecturer. He is the scientific founder or co-founder of several biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, Exo Therapeutics, Chroma Medicine and Resonance Medicine. Dr. Liu completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley and earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard.