The Laboratory for Biological Engineering develops next generation molecular technologies for applications across biology and medicine.

There is tremendous opportunity at the interface of medicine, biotechnology, and genome engineering. Disease-associated genetic variants are being discovered at an astonishing rate and with recently developed genome editing technologies it is now possible to model these variants in model systems in an efficient and scalable way. This opens up numerous avenues of research including the creation of new tools and methodologies for rapidly elucidating disease phenotypes and biological mechanisms. Our expertise in molecular technology development and modeling genetic disorders in animal models places us in an ideal position to work at this interface. Our aim is to adapt and apply current genome editing technologies for use in animal models and develop new methodologies, leveraging developments in genome editing and synthetic biology, for in vivo genetic screening, massively paralleled phenotyping, and molecular recording. We will then use these technologies to interrogate the genetic basis and biological mechanisms underlying complex disorders such as cancer and autism.