Isaac Hilton is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University and a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research. Hilton is a pioneer in developing cutting-edge biotechnologies, including CRISPR/Cas systems, gene delivery platforms, and synthetic gene circuitry, to decode human gene regulatory logic and engineer cellular behaviors. Hilton’s team builds robust, accessible platforms for precision synthetic biology and next-generation cell-based therapeutics and investigates how the human genome is regulated in health and disease. The Hilton Lab advances this research mission through close collaborations with colleagues at Rice, the Texas Medical Center, and beyond.

Hilton earned his PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was supported by fellowships in human genetics and virology. As a graduate student, Hilton studied human epigenetics and tumor virology and developed high-throughput genomics approaches to understand pathological chromatin architecture and gene expression programs in virus-infected cancer cells. As a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University, Hilton built some of the first programmable CRISPR/Cas9-based epi-editing platforms, including a CRISPR-based acetyltransferase – a technology recognized as one of The Scientist’s Top Ten Innovations of 2015. While at Duke Hilton also earned the Duke University Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering Postdoctoral Achievement Award.

In 2018, Hilton was recruited to Rice University to launch his research laboratory through a CPRIT Cancer Scholar Award. Since this time, the Hilton Lab has been grateful to receive critical research support from diverse foundations and federal agencies (learn more at hiltonlab.rice.edu). This support has served to advance genome and epigenome editing technologies, synthetic genetic control in human cells, therapeutic cell engineering, and training future leaders in biomedical research and bioengineering. Hilton’s team also pursues translation and commercialization, with lab members serving as inventors on patents related to genome/epigenome editing and cell engineering.

Research Statement

The Hilton Lab engineers human cells for discovery and medicine by making gene regulation and cellular functions programmable. Hilton’s team builds enabling, off-the-shelf biotechnologies that connect fundamental insights in human cell biology to translational advances.