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Joshua Nathaniel Leonard

McCormick School of Engineering

Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence,
Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering


About

Areas of Focus

  • Synthetic biology
  • Cancer immunotherapy
  • Gene therapy
  • Systems biology
  • Computational biology

Work/Research

  • Engineering cell therapies for cancer and chronic disease
  • Design-driven engineering of living systems
  • Computation-guided design of proteins and genetic programs
  • Engineering nanoscale biological vesicles as therapeutic agents
  • Pioneering mammalian synthetic biology

Career

Leonard trained in chemical engineering, receiving a B.S. from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley where he worked with gene therapy pioneer David Schaffer and earned a certificate in the management of technology from the Haas School of Business. Leonard then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Experimental Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, where he elucidated features of the innate immune system that drive antiviral immunity and inform vaccine design.

He then joined the faculty of Northwestern University in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Leonard’s group engineers novel biological systems that perform customized, sophisticated functions for applications in biotechnology and medicine, helping to build the now vibrant field of mammalian synthetic biology. Employing methods ranging from biomolecular engineering to computation-driven design, his team develops technologies including (1) programmable cell-based devices for treating chronic disease, including synthetic receptors and genetic programs, and (2) novel gene therapy platforms based upon bioengineered nanoscale vesicles. Leonard is actively engaged in the development of national science policy, testifying as an expert witness before the U.S. House of Representatives on “21st Century Biology” and through his roles as a council and board member of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium.

He fosters training, entrepreneurship, and industrial impact as director of Northwestern’s NIH-funded Biotechnology Training Program (T32) and entrepreneurial activity as a founder and chief scientific officer of Syenex—a startup focused on making transformative gene delivery technologies universally accessible. Dr. Leonard is a founding member of Northwestern’s Center for Synthetic Biology, which has grown to a leading team within the SynBio community.