Rate My Professor Mark Isalan

Professor Mark Isalan is Professor of Engineering Biology in the Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, at Imperial College London, where he serves as Deputy Head of the Department of Life Sciences. He completed his PhD in engineering zinc fingers to bind new DNA sequences at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge, from 1996 to 2000. Prior to his appointment at Imperial College London in 2013, he was Group Leader in the Gene Network Engineering group at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona from 2006 to 2013 as part of the CRG's 5+4 programme. His career has focused on advancing synthetic biology through protein engineering and gene circuit design, establishing him as a leader in re-engineering biological systems for predictable behavior.

Isalan's research interests encompass synthetic biology, systems biology, protein engineering, zinc finger technologies, gene network engineering, and applications in synthetic gene therapy, Turing pattern formation, and bacterial theranostics. Key publications include 'Synthetic zinc finger repressors reduce mutant huntingtin accumulation in the Huntington's disease cell model' (PNAS, 2012), 'A unified design space of synthetic stripe-forming networks' (Nature Communications, 2014), 'Engineering Gene Networks to Emulate Drosophila Embryonic Pattern Formation' (PLOS Biology, 2005), and 'A three-node Turing gene circuit forms periodic spatial patterns in mammalian cells' (Cell Systems, 2024). With over 160 publications and more than 5,976 citations on Google Scholar, his work has significantly influenced the field, demonstrating evolvability in rewired gene networks and enabling spatial computation in living cells. He has received prestigious funding such as an ERC Starting Grant (2008), Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (2013), and serves as co-investigator on UKRI Engineering Biology Missions projects (2024). Additionally, Isalan is an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE and has delivered public lectures on zinc fingers in gene therapy.