Mohamad Abedi, Ph.D.
HHMI Fellow, Baker Lab, University of Washington
Dr. Mohamad Abedi Awarded Michelson Prize for Proposal Leading to Smarter, Safer Immune Therapies
The Michelson Medical Research Foundation has awarded a 2026 Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grant to Dr. Mohamad Abedi in recognition of his proposal, “de novo Designed Cytokines for Context-Specific Immune Modulation,” to engineer immune therapies that activate only where needed, such as within tumors, to minimize off-target toxicity, making treatments safer and more precise.
About Mohamad Abedi
Mohamad is an immigrant scientist and former refugee who applies engineering principles to understand and reprogram how cells communicate. He trained in biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, where he worked in microfluidics and synthetic biology with Prof. Elliot Hui and Prof. Chang Liu. As a Soros and NSF Fellow at Caltech with Prof. Mikhail Shapiro, he developed ultrasound-based tools to remotely control engineered immune cells and microbes. As a JCC/HHMI Fellow in Prof. David Baker’s lab at the Institute for Protein Design, he used AI-driven protein design and high throughput automation to decode and rewire cell signaling, enabling new paradigms in programmable immunotherapies.