UC Santa Barbara · Bioengineering
Chemla Lab
Engineered biology in the wild.
We work to make engineered biology predictable, observable, anddeployable — designing mRNA at the kinetic level, building hyperspectral reporters readable from satellites, and developing the forensic, design, and governance tools that let engineered organisms live responsibly in the real world.
A new lab in the Department of Bioengineering at UC Santa Barbara
The Chemla Lab is a new lab in the Department of Bioengineering at UC Santa Barbara. Yonatan Chemla is currently a Research Scientist (postdoctoral) in the Voigt Lab at MIT, Department of Biological Engineering, and is recruiting now for the lab's first cohort.
Research
Three themes, one vision
Three indispensable legs of engineered biology in the wild. Each makes the others possible.
- Theme 1 · Predictable
Genetic Design: mRNA Engineering
Sequence-to-function rules for mRNA structure, translation, and stability — and the direct kinetic measurements (MIT-seq, CFTseq) that let us design protein levels instead of guessing them.
- Theme 2 · Observable
Hyperspectral Biology
Genetically encoded reporters readable from microscope to satellite. Once read-out exists at every scale, every other deployment decision becomes evidence-based.
- Theme 3 · Deployable
Engineering × Ecology
Designing engineered organisms that work — and stay accountable — outside the lab. Forensic tracking, design for the wild, and the governance infrastructure to deploy responsibly.
Join the founding cohort
Build the design era of biology with us.
The Chemla Lab is recruiting its founding members now at UC Santa Barbara — postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates — across mRNA biology, hyperspectral imaging, microbial ecology, and computation.