As previously announced, postdoc Colin Kim of the Nett Lab has been chosen as a 2024 Hanna H. Gray Fellow. The prestigious HHMI-funded fellowship provides up to 1.5 million dollars of funding to promising researchers as they complete their postdoctoral training and establish their own labs.
“My initial reaction was ‘Wow, what an incredible honor!’” Kim says. “I am deeply grateful for this award and for the opportunity to use this platform to foster an inclusive and loving environment for future scientists.”
“I couldn’t be happier for Colin to receive this distinction. He put in a ton of time and effort to make this happen — both for the initial application and for the follow-up interview,” says MCB faculty and Kim’s adviser Ryan Nett. “Earning a prestigious fellowship like this requires a postdoc to be outstanding in so many different ways, not just by being an excellent researcher, but also by communicating science clearly and rigorously to a diverse audience. This fellowship is also looking for fundamentally good people who stand out in their mentorship and broader service to the scientific community. Colin excels in all of these areas; he’s an exceptional scientist, delivers highly engaging presentations, and has been a really terrific mentor for other people in my lab — and he has a long track record of this. I’m thrilled these qualities of Colin were recognized by HHMI, and he should be really proud of this accomplishment.”
Kim was born in Suwon, South Korea where his mother was a pianist and his father a graduate student. When he was ten years old, Kim moved to Cupertino, California with his mother and brother. There, he encountered challenges as an immigrant: language barrier, financial instability, a separated household, and cultural dissonance. Growing up in Silicon Valley’s competitive atmosphere with its intense focus on academics, especially STEM fields, Kim was not convinced he had a talent for science.
It wasn’t until the summer after high school, when he was taking calculus at a community college, that Kim found a mentor who recognized his potential. The community college professor noted Kim had a knack for solving problems and encouraged him to consider pursuing a career in STEM.
As an undergraduate, Kim attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Initially, he intended to major in psychology, envisioning a potential career as a clinical psychologist. But he had an epiphany that led him to declare a major in chemistry and biochemistry at the College of Creative Studies, informally known as the ‘graduate school for undergraduates’. “While sitting in a chemistry lecture hall, I realized the world can be explained by conceptualizing various aspects of life in terms of how molecules come together to form compounds, and how those compounds then come together to form physical materials,” Kim recalls. “At that moment, it just clicked for me. I was like, ‘Wow, molecules are super cool!'”
At UCSB, Kim joined the lab of biochemist Irene Chen, who is now at UCLA. He remembers her as a key mentor who encouraged him to consider research as a career path. Kim was initially concerned about the financial sustainability of a research-focused path in academia but says that becoming an NIH MARC Scholar proved to be a turning point. He spent the following summer as an Amgen Scholar in Christina Smolke’s lab at Stanford University.
“That’s when I solidified my passion to pursue a Ph.D.,” he says. “I was intrigued by naturally occurring molecules and developed an interest in synthetic biology as a means to produce them. [Smolke] is a pioneer in the field of yeast metabolic engineering and my summer project aimed at rewiring the yeast metabolism to make the antispasmodic drug papaverine.” It was Kim’s first time engineering a metabolic pathway to produce a valuable compound, and he was hooked.
After graduating from UCSB in 2018, Kim pursued his interest in plant natural products and synthetic biology in Jing-Ke Weng’s lab at MIT. The Weng lab investigates the metabolic evolution of plants and discovers novel proteins that drive the chemical processes involved in producing valuable compounds. “During my Ph.D., I was captivated by how enzymes evolve new ways to catalyze chemical reactions that are otherwise challenging to achieve using traditional chemical methods,” Kim says, describing an interest that persists to this day. His Ph.D. thesis work focused on two distinct enzymes: one that incorporates halogens, like chlorine, into alkaloid molecules, and another, called coumarin synthase (COSY), which exhibits an entirely new reaction beyond its previously described function.
“Colin approaches science with remarkable interdisciplinary versatility, combining genetics, genomics, chemistry, biochemistry, and computational methods,” says Weng. “He shows particular strength in identifying novel research directions and mastering new techniques as needed. Towards the later stage of his Ph.D., he essentially functioned as a ‘junior PI,’ demonstrating scientific independence, strong collaborative skills, and effective leadership.”
Weng adds, “A notable example of Colin’s resourcefulness and initiative in problem-solving occurred when he discovered an unusual proton exchange mechanism in the COSY enzyme during his Ph.D. He proactively sought collaboration with Heather Kulik’s lab at MIT for quantum mechanical modeling to further explain his findings. This demonstrates his ability to seek expertise beyond his immediate field to strengthen his research.”
In 2023, Kim defended his thesis and moved up the road to Harvard and the Nett Lab. Throughout his Ph.D., Kim deeply admired Ryan Nett’s work. As Nett was establishing his lab at MCB around the same time Kim was completing his Ph.D., it felt like a natural place to pursue a postdoc. “[Nett] is an expert in elucidating the complete biosynthetic pathways of valuable plant molecules,” Kim explains. “I’m very grateful to have a mentor whom I highly respect and who consistently pushes the boundaries of how we study plant biosynthesis. In my Ph.D., I focused on individual enzymes and their chemical reactions, but now I’m expanding my skill set to understand how multiple enzymes are involved in a metabolic pathway that builds complex compounds from simple molecules.”
During his postdoc, Kim is investigating how the kanna plant synthesizes mesembrine alkaloids, which are known for their antidepressant effects. He has been busy identifying the enzymes involved in their biosynthetic pathway. “The core scaffolding reaction in the biosynthesis of mesembrine is chemically fascinating,” he says. “By understanding how plants produce these molecules, we can further investigate and engineer these enzymes to create similar neuroactive compounds that are not found in nature.”
“From this project, I discovered that several enzymes involved in the production of mesembrine exhibit promiscuous activity, meaning they can catalyze multiple reactions and process various starting materials, generating different products that likely contribute to a complex metabolic network,” he says. “Oftentimes, we tend to view building a molecule as a linear process, where each enzyme performs a single reaction, resembling an assembly line. In reality, these enzymes catalyze multiple reactions and operate within a vast network of metabolites.” One follow-up question he is curious about is how the plants compartmentalize synthetic reactions and ensure that the correct enzyme finds the correct substrate.
“Moving forward, Colin is looking to determine how such metabolic complexity is organized in the kanna plant, and in plants more broadly — and he has the perfect skill set to do so,” Nett says. “He’s become an expert in everything from enzyme structure and function to genomics, so he really is equipped to provide a holistic understanding of how complex metabolism is organized in plants.”
When he’s not in the lab, Kim enjoys unwinding by cooking with his fiancé or connecting with friends in his church community. Music and spiritual faith were the initial reasons his family immigrated to the United States, and they remain important to him today: he currently plays guitar in his church’s band. Kim also serves the local community in Boston through his church by supporting individuals experiencing homelessness and struggling with substance use addiction on the Methadone Mile.
Kim expresses his gratitude to everyone in the Nett Lab for their support in helping him prepare for his Hanna Gray interview. He considers it, in many ways, a team award. He is also grateful for the mentorship he received through the joint meetings of the Nett, Bellono, Elya, Losick, and Cavanaugh Labs.
