New Faculty Appointment: Dr. Chase Beisel Joins the BIIE
The Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering (BIIE) is excited to announce the appointment of Dr. Chase Beisel as its next faculty member. Dr. Beisel brings over a decade of experience studying and harnessing bacterial immune systems, with the goal of translating discoveries into tools and technologies to improve global child and adolescent health.
Prior to joining the BIIE, Dr. Beisel was a Full Professor and Head of Department at the Helmholtz Institute of RNA-based Infection Research, with a joint appointment in the medical faculty of the University of Würzburg. He was also a tenured associate professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University.
Dr. Beisel’s research entails the characterization and engineering of bacterial immune systems. While seemingly simple microbes, bacteria possess a massive arsenal of immune systems they use to gain the upper hand in the ongoing arms race with bacteriophages and other mobile genetic elements. His group has primarily focused on CRISPR-Cas systems, the only known adaptive immune systems in bacteria and the source of CRISPR technologies revolutionizing gene editing and molecular diagnostics. At the same time, his group works on the vast assortment of newly discovered bacterial defenses and how these defenses can be harnessed as the next generation of technologies.
Dr. Beisel’s lab has over 100 scientific publications, with many appearing in Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Microbiology, Cell Host & Microbe and Molecular Cell. This work garnered numerous awards in the US and Germany, including an ERC Consolidator Award, the RNA Society Mid-Career Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Pettenkoffer Prize, and an NSF CAREER Award. His technology development work led to multiple awarded patents and two spin-off companies he co-founded (Locus Biosciences, Leopard Biosciences). He also served as a scientific advisor to the publicly-traded biotech company Benson Hill.
Q&A with Dr. Beisel
Could you share how your research on bacterial immune systems might help improve children's and adolescents' health, which is central to BIIE's mission?
While seemingly unconnected, the immune systems possessed by bacteria actually have a lot to offer towards improving child and adolescent health. These immune systems emerged from an ancient and global arms race, with bacteria and their pathogens each attempting to gain an upper hand. The resulting innovations are both incredible and directly applicable to societal needs–whether cutting and pasting fragments of DNA through the use of restriction enzymes that drove the recombinant DNA revolution in the 1970’s to generating defined gene edits through the use of CRISPR nucleases helping drive the modern genomic revolution. My group digs into the myriad of these immune systems, aiming to unearth capabilities evolved by bacteria that can become the next generation of tools and technologies. These technologies in turn, whether for field-deployable molecular diagnostics or the high-throughput interrogation of immune cells, serve our efforts toward improving child and adolescent health and fulfilling BIIE’s mission.
What collaborative opportunities do you envision with other BIIE faculty members that could enhance your work on bacterial immune engineering?
As the faculty of the BIIE takes shape, I see many opportunities to synergize and even join forces. For instance, my group’s suite of CRISPR technologies can assist with ongoing efforts in systems immunology and synthetic immunology, whether genetically modifying immune components and cells or developing high-throughput approaches to interrogate the molecular mechanisms underlying immune development. I am also excited to leverage BIIE’s growing capabilities in computational immunology that can bring modern advances in Artificial Intelligence to the advancement of CRISPR technologies. BIIE’s translational focus and links to the clinic further offers an incredible opportunity to see the tools and technologies developed in my group become approved products directly impacting child and adolescent health.
Based on your experience with CRISPR-Cas systems, which emerging applications do you find most promising for addressing current challenges in medical biotechnology?
While CRISPR has enabled an incredible assortment of applications, I am most excited at the moment about its use for gene therapies and point-of-care molecular diagnostics. For gene therapies, the first CRISPR-approved drug as well as recent success stories of CRISPR-based treatments for rare diseases offer strong motivation to further improve and expand these technologies while finding ways to make them affordable in the Global South. For point-of-care molecular diagnostics, CRISPR has the potential to bring the power of PCR to any setting without the need for expensive equipment or highly trained personnel. I also expect new discoveries in the coming years that open new applications areas for CRISPR that could benefit child and adolescent health globally.
How does your experience founding two biotech companies (Locus Biosciences and Leopard Biosciences) formulate your approach to academic research and technology translation?
These experiences have shown me that innovating in the lab is merely the first of many steps to creating commercially viable products and benefiting society at large. While such innovations in the lab are absolutely crucial, meeting market demands in competitive landscapes requires a different way of thinking and development path once those innovations are in hand. I have also seen how this path must bring together expertise well outside of traditional academic circles, whether for product development that takes into account user needs and supply chains to navigating regulatory approval processes in different countries and regions. It has been humbling seeing what it takes to make the jump from the lab to the market, yet I feel emboldened to make this leap and excited to partner with amazing colleagues who have the know-how and passion to make it possible.