Seth Shipman and his team develop innovative strategies to manipulate cells for discovery and therapeutic purposes. As a general principle, they build new technologies to intervene in human disease using molecular parts sourced from bacteria. For instance, Shipman’s team developed a way to record the order in which genes turn on in a living cell by co-opting two different bacterial immune systems, the retron system and the CRISPR system. His team plans to use that technology to understand how the order of gene expression during development drives the formation of different cells types and tissues. They are also working to improve the precision of genome editing technologies that will be used to correct disease-causing mutations, by using bacterial retroelements alongside CRISPR-Cas9.

Disease Areas

Neuropsychiatric Diseases
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Mitochondrial Disorders
Cancer

Areas of Expertise

Molecular Engineering
Technology Development
Neuroscience
Aging
CRISPR and Genome Editing
Stem Cells and iPS Cells
Working in the Shipman lab

Lab Focus

Developing molecular technology to understand gene expression over time in living cells, and to overcome technical roadblocks in our understanding of development and disease
Leveraging the potential of synthetic DNA sequences to store information, rewrite the genome, and reshape the transcriptome of living cells
Developing precise genome editing technologies for molecular medicine and fundamental discovery of disease mechanisms

Research Impact

The philosophy driving Shipman’s research is to identify a technical limitation in a given field and tackle it with innovative approaches borrowing from diverse fields, such as bioengineering, genetics, systems and synthetic biology, neuroscience, microbiology, and chemical biology. With this mindset, Shipman addresses the fundamental question of the relative timing of gene expression with a technology that logs a record of sequential events in the DNA of living cells. The lab also harnesses molecular components from bacterial immune systems to make precise modifications to the human genome.

 

Lab Members

Daniel Brody
Rotation Student
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Sue Cammack
Senior Administrative Specialist
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Kate Crawford, c
Graduate Student
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Rebecca Fang
Graduate Student
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Alejandro Gonzalez Delgado, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Jihoon Han, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Santiago Lopez
Collaborator
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Santiago Lopez
Rotation Student
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Kazuo Nakamura
Student Intern
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Ramya Paravastu
Research Associate I
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Darshini Poola
Research Associate I
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Pallavi Raj Sharma, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Linhan Wang, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Phillipe Wiederkehr
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Phillipe Wiederkehr
Research Associate I
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Karen Zhang
Graduate Student
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