Mark Mimee's interest in microbial life began in Montreal, Canada, where he completed his BSc. in microbiology and immunology at McGill University. Inspired by the nascent field of synthetic biology, Prof. Mimee pursued studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing his PhD in microbiology as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Student Fellow and a Qualcomm Innovation Fellow.
Mimee joined University of Chicago as an assistant professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Microbiology in 2019.
Mark Mimee’s research focuses on developing strategies to precisely engineer the activity and composition of the microbiota. By genetically manipulating commensal microbes, he seeks to create living devices that can serve as biosensors to probe the structure and function of the microbiome and as cell-based therapeutics for infectious and inflammatory disease. Additionally, he develops approaches to augment the natural properties of viruses that infect bacteria, called bacteriophage, to create novel therapies for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. His long-term vision is to implement these synthetic biology technologies to chart new basic and translational studies to exploit the microbiota for human health.
Positions are available for graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting scholars.