People

CRISPR-Cas-based genome editing tools enable the control of gene expression in cells, tissues and whole organisms. Although invaluable for experimental studies, translation of these advances into clinical therapeutics requires delivery of CRISPR-Cas proteins and guide RNA to disease-relevant organs in the body. All current in vivo delivery strategies have drawbacks including ineffective delivery to target tissue, prolonged nuclease expression leading to off-target damage, and clearance of edited cells by adaptive immune responses. I posit that viral infection strategies can be harnessed to overcome the challenges faced by the in vivo delivery of genome editing tools. In the Doudna laboratory, I am applying my background in viral engineering to create the next-generation of CRISPR-Cas delivery vehicles and translate these technologies into therapeutics. By merging virology with bioengineering, I aim to make these revolutionary genome-based treatments accessible to all people who can benefit.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a deadly disease that most people with this cancer died within two years of diagnosis despite decades of research on finding more effective treatments. With the recent development of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins as easily accessible and programmable means of editing and regulating genes, I propose to directly leverage CRISPR-Cas as a therapeutic modality to eliminate GBM cells. I have two main research focuses 1) use CRISPR-Cas system to dissect mechanisms of tumorigenesis and identify therapeutic targets, and 2) develop in vivo delivery tools to target GBM stem-like cells, the main population responsible for tumor recurrence, using intracranial xenograft model of GBM.

Matt is a clinical fellow in allergy and immunology at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He has been studying the immune system since he was an undergraduate at Harvard University, where he worked on the role of NKT cells in asthma with Dale Umetsu. He received his MD and PhD in immunology at Duke University in the labs of Carol Colton and Michael Dee Gunn, where he identified a novel immune-mediated mechanism in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease that is being explored in a clinical trial. Matt studied computational immunology during a postdoctoral fellowship with Atul Butte at UCSF and completed his residency training in pediatrics at UCSF. His clinical focus is on inborn errors in immunity and he is designing CRISPR/Cas-based gene therapy for patients with primary immune deficiencies.

Abby is a postdoctoral scholar in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences. She began studying the host immune response to bioengineered materials during her time as a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. She now studies how the immune system responds to Cas proteins and delivery vectors to improve the efficacy of gene editing and to further translate the use of CRISPR systems for in vivo applications.

Jason is a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institutes studying SARS-CoV-2 proteins and protein structures. He received his PhD in virology at Harvard, where he studied tumor microbiomes and viral transcriptomes in the labs of James DeCaprio and Matthew Meyerson.

Amanda is a postdoctoral scholar working jointly with the Rubin and Doudna lab on the BiomeForge project to develop and apply microbiome editing tools in environmentally relevant microbial communities. As a joint PhD student at San Diego State University and the University of California San Diego, Amanda established genetic tractability in several environmental isolates of marine bacteria important for symbiosis. She is now applying microbial community editing techniques to lignin degrading bacterial communities with support from JBEI. Furthermore, she aims to improve the maintenance and enrichment of successfully edited microbes in this system by establishing methods for positive metabolic selection.

Ron is a Biophysics PhD student in the Doudna Lab, interested in computation and biology. Previously, Ron was a research scientist at GoogleX, where he led projects and research spanning life sciences, machine learning, and quantum computing. He helped build the machine learning team at System1 Biosciences, leading the analysis of multi-omics and imaging datasets to identify phenotypes of neuropsychiatric diseases in cerebral organoids. He earned his BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, where he conducted machine learning research as part of the VisionLab and started the nonprofit MedHacks.

As a senior research scientist, I have extensive biological research experiences in molecular and cellular biology in plants, E. coli, yeasts, viruses, mammalian, and human diseases such as autoimmune, glaucoma and hyperbilirubinemia. This has increased my ability to perform many different types of research approaches. With this vast experience, I have joined Dr. Doudna’s lab as a project scientist in order to accomplish my career goal that is to contribute my experience to improve gene therapy through gene editing such as CRISPR-CAS9.

In this lab, I will focus on the in vivo CRISPR-CAS system by which we will figure out how to deliver our gene therapy complex to tissues/organs, specifically and precisely.

In addition, I have realized that people working together is most important. So I have a motto  ‘work together, make together’ is the best way to move forward and make good progress. Furthermore, I always keep in mind for work progress ‘Let it happen? Make it happen!

Alana is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley (’25) studying Molecular and Cell Biology with an intended emphasis in Genetics, Genomics, and Development. She grew up in Los Angeles and currently lives in Taiwan, but the Bay Area is her favorite place to live so far.