Joshua Leonard
Northwestern University, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Cells can be programmed with new genes so that they sense their surroundings, remember past events, or manufacture useful products. Making such programs work reliably in mammalian cells remains slow and largely trial-and-error.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Biochemistry
Engineering
- Topics
synthetic biology
genetic circuits
mammalian cell engineering
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Build mammalian genetic programs with long-lived memory by harnessing natural addition and removal of stable marks on the genome, producing circuits with inducible and autonomous state switching.
- Generate candidate engineered cell therapies for cancer that sense external cues such as tumor-site markers and trigger therapeutic responses, using model-guided design to improve safety and efficacy.
- Develop a computational framework for semi-automated, computer-assisted design of genetic programs, delivered as a freely accessible graphics-enabled open software platform.
- Determine how producing cells make and assemble engineered virus-like particles, nanoscale non-infectious protein shells, and characterize their self-assembly.
- Design autonomous dynamic genetic control circuits, guided by computational models, that direct efficient virus-like particle self-assembly and yield biomanufacturing-ready cell lines and genetic parts.
More about the research
Two projects combine synthetic biology, the design of new genetic circuits, with computational modeling: one to make engineered cells into safer and more effective therapies, the other to make cells better producers of virus-like particles for drug delivery.
Why it matters
Tools that let bioengineers design and test cellular functions faster could speed development of safer, more effective engineered cell therapies for cancer, autoimmune disease and regenerative medicine. Better control over virus-like particle assembly could improve manufacturing of gene and drug delivery vehicles, and the resulting genetic parts, cell lines and open design software would be available to other researchers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Dan Kaufman
University of California-San Diego, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether virus-like particles carrying DARPin or scFv targeting proteins deliver mRNA selectively to T cells, NK cells or macrophages, first in cell lines and then in primary human immune cells.
William Chen
University of South Dakota, SD·Biomedical Engineering
Engineer mouse bone marrow MSCs carrying synthetic genetic circuits that detect inflammatory signals, improve MSC survival and shift tissue inflammation from destructive to constructive, tested in cell, organoid and animal models.
Sidi Chen
Yale University, CT·Biomedical Engineering
Advance and validate MAJESTIC, a gene delivery system combining mRNA, AAV vectors and the Sleeping Beauty transposon, testing efficient and stable cargo delivery with minimal toxicity across diverse immune cell types.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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