Research

Engineering biology across scales

Our laboratory programs genetic circuitry inside cells to sense and respond to their environments, enabling new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics. A major focus is engineering bacteria to treat cancer by specifically releasing therapeutic molecules directly within tumors. This localized drug delivery can reduce systemic toxicity while reprogramming the tumor microenvironment. We also develop cooperative therapies that combine engineered bacteria with modalities such as CAR-T cells, oncolytic viruses, and nanoparticles. In parallel, we use time-lapse microscopy, sequencing, and computational approaches to uncover how gene networks behave at the single-cell level and guide the design of next-generation engineered biological systems. Our ultimate goal is to translate these technologies into solutions that benefit patients and advance human and planetary health.

Microbial Medicines

We engineer microbes as programmable living medicines that can localize to disease sites and deliver therapeutic payloads directly within the tumor microenvironment. Our work explores bacterial tumor targeting, controlled therapeutic release, and the design of strains that couple environmental sensing to local treatment.

Representative publications

Engineered probiotics for local tumor delivery of checkpoint blockade nanobodiesGurbatri et al. · Science Translational Medicine (2020)
Programmable bacteria induce durable tumor regression and systemic antitumor immunityChowdhury et al. · Nature Medicine (2019)
Probiotic neoantigen delivery vectors for precision cancer immunotherapyRedenti & Im et al. · Nature (2024)

Synthetic Biology

We build synthetic gene circuits that allow living cells to sense biological signals, process information, and execute programmed responses. These systems provide a foundation for engineering microbes with increasingly precise spatial, temporal, and conditional control.

Representative publications

A programmable encapsulation system improves delivery of therapeutic bacteria in miceHarimoto & Hahn et al. · Nature Biotechnology (2022)
Engineered bacterial swarm patterns as spatial records of environmental inputsDoshi et al. · Nature Chemical Biology (2023)
Enhancing the tropism of bacteria via genetically programmed biosensorsChien & Harimoto et al. · Nature Biomedical Engineering (2021)
Engineered E. coli swarming for binary and analog input recordingMian et al. · Molecular Systems Biology (2026)

Cooperative Therapies

We develop therapeutic systems in which engineered microbes cooperate with other treatment modalities, including immune cells, oncolytic viruses, cytokines, and nanomedicines. These combinations are designed to exploit complementary mechanisms while concentrating activity at disease sites.

Representative publications

Probiotic-guided CAR-T cells for solid tumor targetingVincent & Gurbatri et al. · Science (2023)
Engineered bacteria launch and control an oncolytic virusSinger & Pabon et al. · Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025)
Iron-tannin coating reduces clearance and increases tumor colonization of systemically delivered bacteriaWindemuth et al. · ACS Synthetic Biology (2024)

Biological Dynamics

We use machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, time-lapse microscopy, and sequencing to understand biological dynamics at the single-cell level. These quantitative approaches reveal how gene networks behave across space and time and help guide the design of next-generation living systems.

Representative publications