James J. Collins was born on June 26, 1965. He is an American biomedical engineer and bioengineer who holds the position of Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At MIT, he also serves as a director at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health.
Collins helped create the field of synthetic biology. His research on synthetic gene circuits and programmable cells has led to new diagnostic and therapeutic methods. These methods have influenced studies on detecting and treating infections caused by emerging pathogens, such as Ebola, Zika, SARS-CoV-2, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He also works in systems biology, where he has discovered how antibiotics function and how antibiotic resistance develops.
Collins conducted research showing that artificial intelligence (AI) methods can help find new antibiotics, such as halicin and abaucin. He leads the Antibiotics-AI Project at MIT, which is supported by The Audacious Project. He is a member of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Additionally, he is a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and a member of the Broad Institute.
Collins is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. These memberships recognize his contributions to synthetic biology and engineered gene networks. In 2023, he received a Clarivate Citation for research that is likely to win a Nobel Prize.
Early life and education
Collins was born on June 26, 1965, in The Bronx, and later moved to Bellerose, New York. His father was an engineer who worked on projects for NASA and the military. At age 10, Collins moved to New Hampshire with his family after finishing elementary school, growing up in Nashua. He first became interested in medical engineering when one of his grandfathers became blind and the other had several strokes.
Collins originally planned to study electrical engineering in college and was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). However, he chose to attend the College of the Holy Cross instead. Collins later said, "I really liked the school. I wanted to work hard and get a strong education, but I also wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to get a broad experience, and I felt I could get that at Holy Cross."
At Holy Cross, Collins was a class officer and a member of the track and cross country teams, where he ran a mile in 4 minutes and 17 seconds. He also wrote for the school newspaper, served as a class officer, and co-hosted a radio show on the Holy Cross radio station. During his undergraduate studies, he received a President's Volunteer Service Award and was named a Fenwick Scholar in 1986, one of the college's highest honors. Collins graduated from Holy Cross in 1987 as class valedictorian, earning a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physics with the highest honors. His undergraduate thesis was titled "Functional Neuromuscular Stimulation: An Analysis of the Biomechanical and Neuromuscular Foundations of Walking."
After graduating from Holy Cross, Collins was one of four students from New England to be selected for a Rhodes Scholarship. He used this award to study medical engineering in England at Oxford University. At Oxford, he was a member of Balliol College and earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in 1990, specializing in medical and mechanical engineering. His dissertation was titled "Joint Mechanics: Modelling of the Lower Limb" and was supervised by John J. O'Connor.
Career
Collins returned to the United States and joined the faculty at Boston University. At Boston University, he started a laboratory and held several important titles, including William F. Warren Distinguished Professor, University Professor, professor of biomedical engineering, professor of medicine, co-director of the Center for BioDynamics, and director of the Center for Synthetic Biology. In 2008, Collins was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, becoming the first person from Boston University to receive this honor.
In 2014, Collins moved to become a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Today, he is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and a professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Collins is also a founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and a member of the Broad Institute. Since 2018, he has led life sciences efforts at the MIT Jameel Clinic.
Collins has worked with many start-up companies. His inventions and technologies have been used by more than 25 biotech and medical device companies. He is also a scientific co-founder of several biotech companies and nonprofit organizations.
In 2010, Collins was chosen by President Barack Obama to serve on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
Work
Collins' research on synthetic gene circuits helped start the field of synthetic biology. He, along with Michael Elowitz and Stanislas Leibler, was the first to show that the physical properties of nucleic acids and proteins can be used to create biological circuits. These circuits can be used to change and control living cells.
In a paper published in Nature, Collins designed and built a genetic toggle switch—a synthetic, bistable gene regulatory network—in E. coli. This toggle switch acts as a synthetic memory unit with important uses in biophysics, biomedicine, and biotechnology. In the same issue of Nature, Elowitz and Leibler showed how to build a synthetic genetic oscillator, called the repressilator, in E. coli. Collins’ Nature paper on the toggle switch and Elowitz and Leibler’s Nature paper on the repressilator are considered important scientific works that mark the start of synthetic biology.
Building on this research, Collins demonstrated that synthetic gene networks can be used as control systems and connected to a microbe’s genetic circuitry to create programmable cells for many uses. These include synthetic probiotics that can act as living diagnostic tools and living treatments to detect, treat, and prevent infections like cholera and C. difficile. He also designed engineered riboregulators (RNA switches) for sensing and control, microbial kill switches, genetic counters for biocontainment, synthetic bacteriophage to fight drug-resistant bacterial infections, genetic switchboards for metabolic engineering, and tunable genetic switches for gene and cell therapy. Recently, Collins developed freeze-dried, cell-free synthetic gene circuits, a new platform that supports low-cost, paper-based diagnostic tests for diseases like Zika, Ebola, SARS-CoV-2, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It also supports wearable biosensors and portable tools to make vaccines in areas with limited resources.
In the area of synthetic biology and regenerative medicine, Collins worked with Derrick Rossi and George Q. Daley on a study using synthetic mRNA technology for medical purposes. The team showed that synthetic mRNA can be used to reprogram and redifferentiate stem cells efficiently. This research was published in Cell Stem Cell in 2010, and Rossi used this technology to help start the company Moderna.
Collins has also used synthetic biology methods (both computer-based and experimental) to study and solve important biological physics questions about how genes are controlled and how cells behave. For example, he has used synthetic gene networks to study the effects of positive feedback in genetic systems, the causes and effects of random changes in gene expression in eukaryotic cells, and how these changes influence cell behavior and survival in difficult conditions. Collins has also shown how synthetic gene circuits can be used to test and improve models of gene regulation and how physics theories and experiments can be combined to understand how genes are controlled.
Collins is also a leading researcher in systems biology, using experimental and computational biophysical methods to analyze and understand natural gene regulatory networks. He and his team showed that these networks can be used to find drug targets, biological signals, and disease markers.
Using systems biology methods, Collins and his team discovered that all types of bactericidal antibiotics cause the same type of cell death through oxidative damage. This finding suggests that targeting systems that repair oxidative damage, such as the SOS DNA repair system, could improve the effectiveness of all major classes of antibiotics and reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance. This work linked bacterial metabolism to antibiotic effectiveness, and Collins and his team further tested and confirmed this connection in later studies.
Collins showed that certain chemicals can help bactericidal antibiotics eliminate persistent, drug-tolerant infections. He also found that low levels of antibiotics can increase genetic changes by boosting the production of harmful molecules called reactive oxygen species, leading to resistance to multiple drugs. Using systems biology methods, Collins and his team also discovered a population-based resistance mechanism that acts like a form of kin selection, where a few resistant bacteria can protect other, more vulnerable cells, helping the whole population survive in harsh conditions.
In 2020, Collins was part of a team led by MIT professor Regina Barzilay that discovered halicin, the first new antibiotic in 30 years. Halicin kills over 35 types of bacteria, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, the superbug C. difficile, and two of the World Health Organization’s most dangerous bacteria. In 2020, Collins, Barzilay, and the MIT Jameel Clinic received funding from The Audacious Project to create the Antibiotics-AI Project, which uses artificial intelligence to find new antibiotics and address the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Collins also helped develop and use nonlinear dynamical methods to study, copy, and improve biological functions, increasing our ability to understand and use the physics of living systems. For example, he proposed that small amounts of noise could improve human sensory and motor functions. He and his team showed that touch and balance in young and older adults, stroke patients, and people with diabetic neuropathy could be improved by applying very small vibrations, such as through vibrating insoles. This research led to the creation of new medical devices to treat complications from diabetic neuropathy, restore brain function after a stroke, and improve balance in older adults.
Awards
Dr. Collins has received many awards for his scientific work, including the Dickson Prize in Medicine, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, the HFSP Nakasone Award, the Max Delbruck Prize, the Gabbay Award, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging, the first Anthony J. Drexel Exceptional Achievement Award, the Lagrange Prize from the CRT Foundation in Italy, the BMES Robert A. Pritzker Award, the Promega Biotechnology Research Award, and being chosen for Technology Review's first TR100 list of 100 young innovators who will shape the future of technology. He was also named to the Scientific American 50 list of top 50 leaders in science and technology.
Dr. Collins is a member of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. In 2003, he received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award," becoming the first bioengineer to earn this honor. His award citation stated, "Dr. Collins has a strong ability to find basic rules that explain complex biological processes and use these ideas to solve practical problems." He was also honored as a Medical All-Star by the Boston Red Sox and threw the first pitch at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. In 2016, Dr. Collins was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator by the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. He is a member of all three U.S. national academies—the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a founding member of the National Academy of Inventors.
Dr. Collins has received teaching awards at Boston University, including the Biomedical Engineering Teacher of the Year Award, the College of Engineering Professor of the Year Award, and the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which is the top teaching award given by Boston University.
In 2023, Dr. Collins was named a Clarivate Citation Laureate along with Michael Elowitz and Stanislas Leibler "for early work on creating synthetic gene circuits, which started the field of synthetic biology."
Personal life
Collins' wife is Mary McNaughton Collins. They met while they were college students at Holy Cross and married in 1990. She is a professor at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. They have two children. Katie is a Marshall Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and Danny is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University.