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David R. Liu is the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1994, graduating first in his class, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999. Liu joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology in 1999, was promoted to associate professor in 2003, and to full professor in 2005. He also serves as the Richard Merkin Professor and director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he is vice chair of the faculty and director of the Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program. Liu became an HHMI investigator in 2005.
Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to advance biology and develop therapeutics. His laboratory has pioneered base editing and prime editing technologies for precision genome editing without double-stranded breaks, as well as phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE) and DNA-templated synthesis methods. These tools are widely used and have supported clinical trials for conditions including sickle-cell disease, beta-thalassemia, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Liu has authored more than 275 papers and holds over 110 U.S. patents. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His honors include the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2022 King Faisal Prize in Medicine, and multiple teaching awards from Harvard such as the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize.
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