James Collins

James J. Collins (born June 26, 1965) is an American bioengineer, and the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is one of the founders of the emerging field of synthetic biology, and has made multiple synthetic biology breakthroughs in biotechnology and biomedicine, including paper-based diagnostics for Zika & Ebola and programmable cells that serve as living diagnostics and living therapeutics to detect-and-treat infections, rare genetic metabolic disorders, and inflammatory bowel disease. Collins is also a pioneering researcher in systems biology, having made fundamental discoveries regarding the actions of antibiotics and the emergence of antibiotic resistance.