The lecture series will annually rotate between each of the school’s eight departments, beginning with the Department of Bioengineering. James J. Collins, PhD, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will present the inaugural lecture, “AI for Good – Deep Learning for Antibiotic Discovery,” on September 12 at 4:00 p.m. in Benedum Hall Room 102."

James J. Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty. He is also a Core Founding Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Professor Collins' patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies, and he has co-founded a number of companies, including Senti Biosciences, Sherlock Biosciences and Cellarity, as well as Phare Bio, a non-profit focused on AI-driven antibiotic discovery. He has received numerous awards and honors, including a MacArthur “Genius” Award and the Dickson Prize in Medicine, and he is an elected member of all three U.S. National Academies – the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.