are dispensable in biochemical assays. Zhang, Doudna, and other colleagues from Harvard founded Editas Medicine in September 2013 to develop and commercialize CRISPR-based therapies. Zhang discovered Cas13 with Harvard colleague Eugene Koonin using computational biology methods. In 2016, Zhang cofounded Arbor Biotechnologies to develop Cas13 for therapeutic use. His lab has also developed a sensitive diagnostic nucleic acid detection protocol that is based on CRISPR termed SHERLOCK (Specific High sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing) that is able to detect and distinguish strains of viruses and bacteria present in as low as attomolar (10−18 M) concentration. Zhang cofounded Sherlock Biosciences in 2018 to further develop this diagnostic technology. Also in 2018, Zhang cofounded Beam Therapeutics with Editas cofounder and Harvard colleague David R. Liu to further advance Liu's work on base editing and prime editing. He has an h-index of 109 according to Google Scholar. Honors Zhang is a recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer Award and a 2012 Searle Scholar. He was named one of MIT Technology Reviews's TR35 in 2013. His work on optogenetics and CRISPR has been recognized by a number of awards, including: the 2011 Perl-UNC Prize (shared with Boyden and Deisseroth); the 2014 Alan T. Waterman Award, the National Science Foundation's highest honor that annually recognizes an outstanding researcher under the age of 35; the 2014 Gabbay Award (shared with Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier); the 2014 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience (shared with Diana Bautista). Zhang also received a New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) – Robertson Stem Cell Investigator Award in 2014, and was named the 2016 NYSCF – Robertson Stem Cell Prize Recipient. In 2015, Zhang became the inaugural recipient of Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award (Nagoya University) and in 2016, he was once again (for the 2nd and 3rd time) sharing honors with Doudna and Charpentier when receiving the Gairdner Foundation International Award and the Tang Prize. In 2017 he received the Albany Medical Center Prize (jointly with Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Luciano Marraffini, and Francisco Mojica) and the Lemelson-MIT Prize. In 2019 he received the Harvey Prize of the Technion/Israel for the year 2018 (jointly with Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna). In 2019, Zhang received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2021 he received the Richard Lounsbery Award. In 2018, Zhang was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,