Matthew Chang is Associate Professor in Biochemistry in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and Director of the Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology (SINERGY), Wilmar-NUS Corporate Laboratory (Wil@NUS) and NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI). His research interests lie in the development of biological systems that perform programmable functions. His scientific contributions have been recognized with international honours and awards, and featured in leading media outlets worldwide. He serves as an editor and an editorial board member for over 15 biotechnology journals. He has trained over 50 undergraduate and high school students, 20 Ph.D. students and 40 research scientists, many now in leadership roles in academia, government and industry. He is a strong advocate of promoting interdisciplinary science that marries engineering, biological, medical and social sciences through education and public science outreach.