Seth Shipman and his lab are focused on identifying new therapeutics and a deeper understanding of human disease by engineering and implementing novel molecular biotechnology. The lab works in areas where the development of an effective cure or a critical insight is held back by technical limitations. They then rethink the underlying problem to dream up tools that do not exist, but would make the largest impact if they did. To build these new technologies, the lab repurposes parts from the microbial world, often from bacterial immune systems. The lab’s work is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing broadly from bioengineering, genetics, systems and synthetic biology, neuroscience, microbiology, and chemical biology to help overcome human disease.