Dr Chase Beisel, Affiliated Group Leader

Chase Beisel received his bachelors and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering, although he always maintained an interest in engineering biomolecules and biological systems. His doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California, USA) with Dr. Christina Smolke introduced him to the concept of RNA engineering. He then completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland, USA) under the direction of Dr. Gisela Storz exploring the natural properties of RNA regulators. He then began his faculty position in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina, USA) in 2011 pursuing RNA-guided immune systems called CRISPR-Cas systems. In 2018, the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg (HIRI) established a research focus on CRISPR biology and technologies. Group leader Chase Beisel, who was appointed in 2025 as a faculty member at the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering (BIIE) in Basel (Switzerland), directs the research with the overarching goal of developing new technologies that can be employed to better understand, diagnose and treat human infections.

His accomplishments have garnered consistent recognition, starting with graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense and a postdoctoral fellowship through the Life Science Research Foundation. Later, his independent research program has also been recognized with the CAREER Award from the US National Science Foundation, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Biotechnology & Bioengineering Daniel I.C. Wang Young Investigator Award, and the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Emerging Leader Award.