Life science company Emulate has opened a new headquarters at 27 Drydock Ave. in the Innovation and Design Building in Boston’s Seaport District.

Emulate leased 20,000 square feet of office and lab space at the 1.4 million-square-foot complex, with plans to expand from 40 to 85 employees within the next year.

Founded in 2014 and incubated at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Emulate collaborates with such local life science companies such as Merck and Johnson & Johnson on drug development pipelines. Emulate’s Organ-on-Chip technology consists of micro-engineered environments lined with living human cells and tissues, enabling researchers to conduct experiments recreating human biology.

“Already, in its first 18 months since launch, Emulate has capitalized on its presence in the commonwealth’s life sciences ecosystem by establishing impressive collaborations with pharmaceutical partners that have local R&D centers,” Massachusetts Life Sciences Center CEO Travis McCready said in a statement.