Keith Pardee

I have recently joined the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy as an assistant professor working at the interface of synthetic biology and human health. My research focuses on the potential of moving synthetic biology outside of the cell; rather than using cells to host engineered genetic programs, we are creating programmable materials with the transcription and translation properties of a cell. During my post-doctoral work with Jim Collins (MIT/Harvard University) at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, I developed the first safe and sterile method to deploy gene circuits out of the lab, creating a platform for programmable in vitro diagnostics.  My lab continues to extend this work, developing cell-free technologies for rapid molecular prototyping, and integrating in vitro synthetic gene networks into new materials and applications.