Our Origins
Kiani lab moved to the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine at University of Pittsburgh in January 2020. The lab began in 2016 after Samira Kiani, MD, was hired as an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering , the Ira A Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. Prior to ASU, Samira completed her postdoctoral training in the center for Synthetic Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she worked on developing synthetic gene circuits to reprogram the function and behavior of mammalian cells based on the Clustered Regularly Interspaced short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology. Dr. Kiani earned her medical doctorate degree (M.D.) from Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
Our Focus
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Our lab focuses on developing controllable genetic circuits by combining the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology with design principles of synthetic biology. We seek to precisely control the location, the timing or logic of function of Cas9 and multiple gRNAs so that we can develop safer and more controllable gene therapy platforms or employ the tools for sophisticated reprograming of cellular function and fate.
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