Cholpisit (Ice) Kiattisewee

Cholpisit (Ice) Kiattisewee is a School of Engineering Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in biological engineering whose research is focused on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and engineered living therapeutics, or living organisms crafted for treating human diseases. As a doctoral student, he developed a novel CRISPR-based technology to regulate microbial behavior and metabolism that can function in diverse bacteria. Supported by a postdoctoral fellowship, Ice will pursue a new approach to designing living therapeutics based on non-model organisms equipped with CRISPR-based gene circuits. The goal of this work is to eradicate antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) from the virulent organisms hidden in hosts’ microbiome; to that end, he will hone a method to target the ARG-carrying organisms and build a genetic tool capable of eradicating ARGs and preventing their re-acquisition. Ice’s work in novel living therapeutics represents a potentially field-altering breakthrough for synthetic biology. The organism-specific gene editing approach in the microbial consortia could be applied for general microbiome engineering, enabling diverse applications from probiotic engineering for human and animal health to microbial community engineering for bioremediation, bioproduction, and waste upcycling.