Dr Meilan Huang joined Queen’s University Belfast in 2007 as a lecturer. She worked with Prof Fengling Qing's in the Key Laboratory of Organoflorine Chemistry at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998-1999. After awarded a PhD degree in Computational Chemistry at Zhejiang University in Feb 2003, she was a postdoc working with Prof Arvi Rauk in the Department of Chemistry at University of Calgary Canada. She was a Welcome Trust research fellow in the Laboratory of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at University of Oxford working with Prof W. Graham Richards, FRS in 2004-2006 and a research fellow working with Prof Artem Cherkasov in Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Canada in 2006-2007. She is a fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

Her main research area is developing and applying computational methods for biocatalysis. She studies the interactions and catalytic mechanism  of various enzymes to direct the rational design of novel biocatalysts for chemical transformations. She published over 60 full research articles in high-impact peer-reviewed journals. As the corresponding author of interdisciplinary research projects, she has published in top chemistry journals including J Am Chem Soc (10.1021/jacs.9b02709), Nature Communications (10.1038/s41467-019-11155-3), ACS Catalysis (10.1021/acscatal.6b02380), Chem Comm (10.1002/cctc.201901200 & 10.1039/C8CC09951K), in close collaborations with organic chemists, molecular biologists, structural biologists. 

She supervised the computational team and accomplished the interdisciplinary biotechnological project “Development of a computational and molecular biology platform between QUB and Almac”, and just launched the new "IN Silico-Informed metaGenomic Harvesting Technology" (INSIGHT) project, in close collabration with Almac. So far, she has secured over £2m research income with a share of £621k.

Computational Chemistry and Biology;

Enzyme Engineering;

Biocatalysis;

Rational Drug Design;

Photocatalytis;

Statistical algorithm and Machine Learning

CHM1015: Skills for Physical Chemistry (Module Coordinator)

CCE1102: Physical Theory

CHM3005C: Computational Chemistry in Drug Discovery (2019-present) (Module Coordinator)

CHM4007: Frontier in Medicinal Chemistry (2013-2019) (Module coordinator)

CHM3010: Practical Skills in Chemistry (Module Coordinator)

CHM3016: Drug Development

CCE Summer School programme (Programme Lead) 

2017: Queen's Student Union "Education Excellence Award" 

2021: Newton Fund Research Links Workshop grant-2020-RLWK12-10149 "Catalytic Chemistry and Chemical Technology of C1 process" British Council.

2021-2023: Royal Society: IEC\NSFC\201177 - International Exchanges 2020 “Machine Learning-assisted Directed Evolution of Enzymes”.

2021-2024: "INSIGHT: IN Silico Informed metaGenomic Harvesting Technology platform - Development of an advanced and secure enzyme discovery platform for Almac and QUB" Invest NI, RD11181114, £1,287,329. 

2015-2019: "New Biotechnology: Development of Computational and Molecular Biology Platforms for Almac and QUB" Invest NI, RD3014092, £763,210.