Lawrence Stern

Dr. Lawrence Stern is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of South Florida College of Engineering. His research focuses on engineering protein- and cell-based therapies for disease treatment through innovative protein engineering approaches.

Dr. Stern's research interests include:

• Engineering a better understanding of synthetic receptors
• Redirecting natural molecules for therapeutic benefit
• Developing new high-throughput screening systems for protein engineering
• Biotechnology applications in immunotherapy

His work primarily centers on synthetic receptors like chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) for cell-based therapies, with applications in cancer and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Stern combines high-throughput experimental approaches and computational protein engineering to gain insight into sequence-function and structure-function relationships, addressing limitations of current platforms to develop next-generation therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Stern has received several prestigious awards:

• NSF CAREER Award (2024)
• Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (2021)
• USF New Researcher Grant (2020)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship from Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of the University of California (2018)
• Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) R35 from the NIGMS

Dr. Stern currently advises multiple PhD students including Damon Panton, Will Stephens, Jose Ezagui, Michael Nelson, and Brandon Ugbesia, who are working on various aspects of protein and cell engineering. His research is supported by multiple grants including an R01 from the NHLBI for collaborative work with Professors Sami Noujaim and Michael Teng from USF Health. The Stern Lab has published research in high-impact journals including the AIChE Journal.

The Stern Lab, located in the Department of Chemical, Biological & Materials Engineering at USF, brings together expertise in protein engineering, immunology, and biochemistry to develop the next generation of cell-based therapies with enhanced impact in difficult-to-treat diseases.