Zhang named Francis Ahmann Professor
Fuzhong Zhang uses synthetic biology to produce advanced biofuels, chemicals, new materials from sustainable resources
Fuzhong Zhang, a renowned expert in synthetic biology, has been named the Francis F. Ahmann Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He will be installed Sept. 30, 2025.
Zhang develops synthetic biology tools and systems to sustainably produce structurally defined chemicals and high-performance materials. He and members of his lab engineer microbes to produce advanced biofuels and chemicals and develop microbial factories to produce high-performance materials. His group has also been developing synthetic biology tools to make biomanufacturing more efficient and robust. His work has so far attracted $34 million in research funding since he joined WashU in 2012, including a recent award of up to $5.2 million from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with which Zhang will lead an interdisciplinary team to develop a genetic “switch” to make microbes work at high efficiency over extended periods during biomanufacturing.
Zhang also is co-director of the Synthetic Biology Manufacturing of Advanced Materials Research Center (SMARC), funded by the National Science Foundation, which works to find ways to enhance innovation in manufacturing materials using synthetic biologics. As the center’s co-director, Zhang is leading to the manufacturing of new materials through synthetic biology. He also is helping to develop graduate educational frameworks for cross-disciplinary innovation at WashU, while also developing a pipeline of future innovators in the St. Louis community.
“Fuzhong Zhang is an exceptionally innovative engineer whose research is changing our bioeconomy and our world,” said Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor. “The products he has developed in his lab have attracted worldwide attention for their potential use as biofuels, strong fibers for textiles and in medical applications. We are pleased to acknowledge his work with this professorship and are grateful to Mr. Ahmann for his support.”
To develop advanced bioproducts, Zhang’s lab has designed metabolic pathways to produce branched biofuels with lower melting temperatures that could one day replace fossil-derived transportation fuels and diacids that can be used as precursor for nylon production. In 2018, his lab engineered bacteria that produced ultra-high molecular weight recombinant spider silk with mechanical performance on par with its natural counterparts. Three years later, his lab further designed and produced amyloid silk hybrid proteins in engineered bacteria. The fibers exhibited high tensile strength, stronger than that of stainless steel and some reported natural spider silk fibers. The fibers’ toughness — a measure of energy absorbed to break a fiber — are higher than Kevlar, making them attractive for a wide-range of mechanically-demanding applications. In 2023, his group took these materials one step closer to practical application, demonstrating high yield bioproduction through microbial fermentation. Additionally, His lab has created a promising alternative to medical adhesives based on the behavior of mussel feet. He and his team created a novel class of hydrogels constructed entirely from artificially designed proteins. These unique proteins give hydrogels advantageous properties, including outstanding mechanical and underwater adhesive properties while being bio-absorbable and uniquely fitted to tissue repair/engineering applications.
Zhang’s group has also developed synthetic biology tools and systems to facilitate sustainable biomanufacturing. These tools include gene circuits that control microbial metabolic dynamics and heterogeneity; biosensors that real-time monitor the metabolic status of product-making microbes; and high-throughput methods to reveal genome-wide gene regulation.
Zhang earned a bachelor’s degree at Peking University, a master’s degree at McMaster University, and a doctorate at University of Toronto. He completed postdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley Joint BioEnergy Institute. He has won nearly every young investigator award available to engineers, including the DARPA Young Faculty Award; ORAU Junior Faculty Enhancement Award; NSF CAREER Award; Young Investigator Program from Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Office of Naval Research and Human Frontier Science Program Organization; NASA Early Career Faculty Award; Dean’s Faculty Award for Innovation in Research; the SIMB Young Investigator Award; Biotechnology & Bioengineering Daniel Wang Award; and NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award.
Zhang has been awarded four U.S. patents and has three pending. He has written more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles in journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Metabolic Engineering and ACS Synthetic Biology.
In addition to teaching in McKelvey Engineering, Zhang also teaches in the community. He has been hosting workshops in “Hot Topics in Synthetic Biology” for local high school and middle school science educators, which spotlighted the most recent breakthroughs in synthetic biology and projected future workforce requirements. In addition, he has hosted area high school students in his lab during the summers.
Francis F. Ahmann
Established in 1993, the Francis F. Ahmann Professorship honors an alumnus and a generous benefactor of the university.
Ahmann earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Washington University in 1924 and 1926, respectively. After graduation, he turned down an offer to work for Eastman-Kodak in Russia, returning instead to St. Charles, Missouri, to work in the retail office supply store his father had founded. He spent his entire business career at Ahmann’s, ultimately managing the family business for nearly four decades before selling it in 1984.
A staunch supporter of the St. Charles Boy’s Club, Shriners Hospitals and children from every part of the world, Mr. Ahmann once said, “My idea of giving is just to give to people who really need it.” He was generous to the university, particularly what was then the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He helped finance the school’s Five-Year Plan, contributed $500,000 to the construction of Jolley Hall, endowed a Scientific Equipment Fund for the Department of Chemical Engineering, and funded engineering scholarships during his lifetime. Then, through his bequest, he endowed those scholarships for chemical engineering students.
In recognition of Mr. Ahmann’s generosity, Washington University presented him with the Robert S. Brookings Award in 1991.
Mr. Ahmann died in 1992.