Research

We exploit the natural ability of bacteria to accumulate in solid tumors and engineer them as local delivery vehicles. Our systems have been designed to release checkpoint-blockade nanobodies, tumor neoantigens, cytokines and chemokines, toxins, small molecules, and diagnostics. By concentrating activity within tumors, these approaches aim to achieve potent local treatment while limiting exposure to healthy tissue.

We build gene circuits that control when, where, and how microbes act. Our work includes biosensors that change bacterial tropism in response to environmental cues, encapsulation circuits that regulate immune evasion, and swarming systems that record spatial or analog inputs in colony patterns. These tools reveal how engineered cells process information while providing modular control for future therapeutic systems.

We design treatments in which bacteria perform one part of a larger therapeutic program. We have used tumor-seeking microbes to guide CAR-T cells, launch and spatially contain oncolytic viruses, and pair bacterial delivery with material coatings that improve circulation and tumor colonization. These strategies combine complementary mechanisms to create therapeutic behaviors that are difficult to achieve with any single modality.

We develop quantitative tools to understand how biological systems change over time and at single-cell resolution. By combining automated time-lapse microscopy with computer vision, deep-learning, and AI approaches, we measure and analyze cellular dynamics across scales. These measurements connect single-cell behaviors to population-level dynamics and help inform the design and engineering of biological systems.