Katie Galloway is the W. M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research focuses on elucidating the fundamental principles of integrating synthetic circuitry to drive cellular behaviors. Her lab focuses on developing integrated gene circuits and elucidating the systems-level principles that govern complex cellular behaviors. Her team leverages synthetic biology to transform how we understand cellular transitions and engineer cellular therapies. Galloway earned a PhD and an MS in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. She completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Southern California. Her research has been featured in Science, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Systems, and Development. She has won multiple fellowships and awards including the Pershing Square MIND Prize 2025, the NSF CAREER 2024, C. Michael Mohr Outstanding Faculty Award for Undergraduate Teaching 2024, BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Rising Star Award 2023, the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) R35, the NIH F32, and Caltech’s Everhart Award.

Keynote Abstract

Engineering high-precision, dynamic genetic control systems for cell fate programming

Integrating synthetic circuitry into larger transcriptional networks to mediate predictable cellular behaviors remains a challenge within synthetic biology. In particular, the stochastic nature of transcription makes coordinating expression across multiple genetic elements difficult. Further, delivery of large genetic cargoes limits the efficiency of cellular engineering. Thus, our work is focused on the design of highly-compact genetic tools with a minimal genomic footprint. Simultaneously, we have been developing cocktails of transgenes that are capable of rapidly convert cells into neurons. The sparse and stochastic nature of reprogramming has obscured our understanding of how transcription factors drive cells to new identities. To overcome this limit, we developed a compact, portable reprogramming system that increases direct conversion of fibroblasts to motor neurons by two orders of magnitude. Low rates of direct conversion have previously limited the potential for central nervous system (CNS) applications. Using compact, optimized, polycistronic cassettes, we generate motor neurons that graft with the murine central nervous system, demonstrating the potential for in vivo therapies. With improved tools for identifying cell-fate regulators and tracking subpopulations, we are building genetic controllers that can regulate transgenic cargoes and cell fate in primary cells. Developing genetic control systems provides an essential foundation for realizing the promise of synthetic biology in translational therapies.