Feng Zhang serves as Advisory Board Member at Phylo, an AI research lab building technology to accelerate biomedical discovery, where he provides strategic guidance on genomics and computational biology. He is the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Zhang earned his B.A. in chemistry and physics from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University, where he developed optogenetics technologies. He joined MIT and the Broad Institute in 2011, receiving tenure in 2016 and becoming a full professor in 2018.

Zhang pioneered the development of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome editing in human cells and discovered multiple CRISPR systems including Cas12 and Cas13. In 2025, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest U.S. honor for technological achievements.

Zhang cofounded multiple biotech companies including Editas Medicine (2013), Arbor Biotechnologies (2016), Sherlock Biosciences (2018), Beam Therapeutics (2018), and Aera Therapeutics (2023). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The first CRISPR/Cas9-based therapeutic, based on Zhang's 2015 design, was approved in 2023 to treat sickle cell disease. His CRISPR tools have been distributed to over 2,000 labs in more than 60 countries, accelerating biomedical research worldwide.