His laboratory harnesses the tools of synthetic and chemical biology to engineer the immune cell therapies for cancer and autoimmunity of the future. He received his doctorate from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. There he studied the fundamental cellular and biochemical mechanisms required for immune cell activation and clearance of infections. While a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellow in Wendell Lim's laboratory at UCSF, he developed a new class of synthetic receptors, which provide unprecedented customization of therapeutic cells for treatment of a broad range of diseases. www.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1112