Tetsuhiro Harimoto
Biography
Tetsuhiro Harimoto received his B.S. in Biomedical Toxicology from the University of Toronto in 2014. Following graduation, he worked as an Equity Research Associate at Morgan Stanley, focusing on the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Tetsuhiro then completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, working with Dr. Tal Danino, where he focused on the genetic engineering of microbes as novel drug delivery systems. Since 2022, Tetsuhiro has worked with Dr. David Mooney as an NCI F99/K00 postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. His research focuses on developing engineered living materials as next-generation drug delivery systems. Tetsuhiro was recognized as one of STAT’s Wunderkinds and named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 in 2023.
Research Interests
Delivering drugs to specific tissues at precise doses remains a universal challenge in medicine. Our research group aims to develop a fundamentally new approach to drug delivery—engineering microbes as intelligent living medicines. We leverage synthetic biology to genetically program bacteria that home to target tissues and treat diseases on-site. We combine this approach with novel materials to control their physical properties, creating engineered living materials that expand the scope and applicability of these systems. This multidisciplinary strategy seeks to create a broadly applicable platform capable of autonomously diagnosing diseases and producing therapeutics on demand.