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David R. Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor and director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare at the ӳ����ý of MIT and Harvard, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.

Liu’s laboratory invented base editing, the first general method to perform precision gene editing without double-stranded breaks. His lab also developed prime editing, a versatile form of gene editing capable of correcting most disease-causing mutations. These technologies are used by thousands of labs around the world and have enabled the study and treatment of genetic diseases in cells, animals, and human patients. As of 2026, at least 23 clinical trials are using base editing or prime editing to treat diseases including leukemias, hypercholesterolemia, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, sickle-cell disease, beta-thalassemia, chronic granulomatous disease, and many others. The first clinical benefits of both ex vivo and in vivo base editing have already been reported, including baby K.J. Muldoon who is now meeting developmental milestones; young T-cell leukemia patients such as Alyssa Tapley whose lives were saved by base editing; sickle-cell disease patients such as Branden Baptiste who are now symptom-free and medication-free; chronic granulomatous disease patients such as Tracy Attebury who now have functional immune systems as a result of prime editing; and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency patients who also represent the first humans to have their pathogenic mutation corrected in vivo.

Liu’s lab recently developed a new prime editing strategy that could potentially treat multiple genetic diseases with a single drug. He also co-leads the Center for Genetic Surgery at ӳ����ý, which aims to make individualized genetic medicine reproducible, scalable, and sustainable so that more patients with genetic disease can benefit from new, effective treatments. Liu is the founder or co-founder of several public and private biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, nChroma Bio, and Exo Therapeutics.

Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His laboratory’s major research interests include the engineering, evolution, and in vivo delivery of genome editing agents such as base editors and prime editors to study and treat genetic diseases; the evolution of proteins with novel therapeutic potential using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE); and the discovery of bioactive synthetic small molecules and synthetic polymers using DNA-templated organic synthesis and DNA-encoded libraries. Base editing, prime editing, PACE, and DNA-encoded small-molecule libraries are four examples of technologies pioneered in his laboratory.

Liu graduated first in his class at Harvard College in 1994. During his doctoral research at UC Berkeley, Liu initiated the first general effort to expand the genetic code in living cells. He earned his Ph.D. in 1999 and became assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University in the same year. He was promoted to associate professor in 2003 and to full professor in 2005. Liu became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 2005 and joined the JASONs, academic science advisors to the US government, in 2009. In 2016 he became a core institute member and vice-chair of the faculty at the ӳ����ý of MIT and Harvard, and director of the Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program.

Liu has published more than 290 papers and is the inventor on more than 115 issued U.S. patents. Liu has been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Laureate in the Life Sciences, the 2026 Harvey Prize winner, the 2026 Franklin Institute Bower Award winner, the 2025 Montrone-Seigel Prize in Biomedical Sciences winner, the 2022 King Faisal Prize Laureate in Medicine, and the 2024 Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award recipient. He has earned several university-wide distinctions for teaching at Harvard, including the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize, the Roslyn Abramson Award, and a Harvard College Professorship. His research accomplishments have earned additional distinctions including the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention, the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Outstanding Achievement Award, the Ian Scott Medal for Excellence in Biological Chemistry Research, the Ronald Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry, the American Chemical Society David Perlman Award, the American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, the Arthur Cope Young Scholar Award, and awards from the Sloan Foundation, Beckman Foundation, NSF CAREER Program, and Searle Scholars Program.

In 2025, Liu was named to the TIME100 Health list of “the 100 individuals who most influenced global health”, and in 2026, he was named to the Washington Post Next 50 (50 people shaping our society). In 2016, 2019, 2020, and 2021 he was named one of the Top 20 Translational Researchers in the world by Nature Biotechnology, and was named one of �����ٳܰ���’s 10 researchers in the world. Liu was named as a leading global thinker by Foreign Policy magazine in 2017, to the STATUS List of 46 leaders in health, medicine, and science by STAT News, and as one of the “Most Influential People in Biopharma in 2023” by Fierce Biotech.

Outside of the lab, Liu pursues a variety of hobbies at the intersection of science and art, including photography around the world, raising large bonsai trees indoors under LED light canopies he designed, creating art from wood, metal, stone, and/or electronic components, and painting.

Areas of expertise: genetic medicine, gene editing, CRISPR, genetic disease, rare disease, chemical biology, protein engineering, laboratory evolution, organic chemistry