Mohamad Abedi, PhD

The Abedi Lab for Synthetic Signaling is developing programmable ways to control immune responses in cancer. They combine computational protein design, synthetic biology, and machine learning to engineer new signaling proteins that help immune cells sense tumors, interpret complex microenvironmental cues, and respond with precision. By building synthetic cytokines and logic-gated signaling systems that act only in defined cancer contexts, they aim to create safer and more effective cell- and protein-based therapies.

Mohamad Abedi*, Marc Expòsit*, Brian Coventry, Divij Mathew, Shruti Jain, Aditya Krishnakumar, et al., E. John Wherry, David Baker. High-Throughput De Novo Protein Design Yields Novel Immunomodulatory Agonists. BioRxiv. 2025 October. DOI: 10.1101/2025.10.12.681920.

Marc Expòsit*, Mohamad Abedi*, Aditya Krishnakumar*, Shruti Jain, Ta-Yi Yu, Timothy R. Hercus, Divij Mathew, et al., E. John Wherry, David Baker. Geometric Tuning of Cytokine Receptor Association Modulates Synthetic Agonist Signaling. BioRxiv. 2025 October. DOI: 10.1101/2025.10.12.681819.

Dan I. Piraner*, Mohamad H. Abedi*, Maria J. Duran Gonzalez*, Adam Chazin-Gray*, Annie Lin, Iowis Zhu, et al., David Baker, Kole T. Roybal. Engineered receptors for soluble cellular communication and disease sensing. Nature. 2025 February. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08366-0.

Huang B*, Abedi M*, Ahn G*, Coventry B*, Sappington I, et al., Bertozzi CR, Baker D. Designed endocytosis-inducing proteins degrade targets and amplify signals. Nature. 2025 Feb;638(8051):796-804. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11839401.

Mohamad H. Abedi*, Michael S. Yao*, David R. Mittelstein, Avinoam Bar-Zion, et al., Mikhail G. Shapiro. Ultrasound-controllable engineered bacteria for cancer immunotherapy. Nature Communications. 2022 March. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022- 29065-2