Ahmad S. Khalil, PhD

Professor (BME); Associate Director, Biological Design Center

Office CILSE, Room 405C
Email khalil@bu.edu
Phone (617) 358-6957; Twitter @MoKhalilLab
Website Khalil Lab

NEWS

In the News

Dean’s Catalyst Awards Announced for 2025
April 18, 2025
The awards aim to give an early boost to bold ideas in research. [ More ]

Publications

View a complete list of publications chronologically by year.
View a complete list of publications by citation.

Research Areas

My research seeks to understand the design principles of living systems by creating and analyzing synthetic ones in the laboratory. Our team develops synthetic biology approaches to rationally construct and dissect the molecular circuits that control gene regulation in eukaryotes, work that has resulted in fundamental discoveries on transcription regulation and epigenetic memory and led to platforms for creating programmable cellular therapies to address pressing human diseases. In addition, our team develops powerful automation technologies, such as the eVOLVER, that enable researchers to perform laboratory evolution at unprecedented scale. We are applying these technologies to recreate the evolutionary histories of biological systems in the laboratory and to harness the power of evolution to generate biomolecules with new and improved functions for a variety of applications. Finally, we are working to distribute and democratize access to the eVOLVER platform (and other technologies we develop), so that researchers worldwide can easily build their own tools and undertake creative new laboratory experiments.

Honors and Awards

2022 Schmidt Science Polymath Award
2020 DoD Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship
2019 Dorf-Ebner Distinguished Faculty Fellow
2017 PECASE Award
2016 NIH New Innovator Award
2016 DARPA Young Faculty Award
2015 Hartwell Foundation Investigator
2014 NSF CAREER Award

Additional Affiliations

Associate Director, Biological Design Center (BDC)
Co-Director, SB2 NIH/NIGMS T32 Training Program
Visiting Scholar, Wyss Institute at Harvard University
Faculty, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology & Biochemistry (MCBB)
Faculty, Bioinformatics

Department or Division: Biomedical Engineering

Affiliations: Primary & Affiliated Faculty, Synthetic Biology, Tissue Engineering & Mechanobiology

View all profiles