Mo is the Hok Lam and Kathleen Kam Wong Professor of Bioengineering, and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Before joining Harvard, he was Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Founding Associate Director of the Biological Design Center at Boston University.
A pioneer in the fields of synthetic and systems biology, Mo’s laboratory is learning how to design and build biological systems that recreate the complex functions of natural ones. Through this approach, their goals are to better understand how biological systems work and evolve, and to design synthetic ones that enable new and useful biological functions.
His team has pioneered synthetic biology tools and approaches to dissect the molecular circuits that control gene regulation in eukaryotes. This work has enabled fundamental discoveries into the nature of transcription regulation and epigenetics, and driven the development of powerful platforms for engineering programmable cellular therapies, such as CAR T cells, for cancer and other diseases. A more recent focus is to develop and apply synthetic biology tools to transform plant biological research and expedite the manipulation of plants to confront pressing issues in food security and global sustainability. In addition, his team has invented novel continuous evolution technologies, such as the eVOLVER platform, which are being used to generate biomolecules with new and improved functions to address unmet needs in biology, medicine, and biotechnology.
Mo is a recipient of numerous awards, including a Schmidt Science Polymath Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), DoD Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, W.M. Keck Medical Research Award, NIH New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, and DARPA Young Faculty Award. He has also received numerous awards for teaching excellence. Mo is co-founder of K2 Therapeutics and Fynch Biosciences, and serves on the SAB of numerous biotechnology companies. He obtained his Ph.D. and M.S. from MIT and his B.S. (Phi Beta Kappa) from Stanford University.