Charles A. Gersbach, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering

Contact Info:

Office Location:	1089 MSRB II
Office Phone:	(919) 684-1129
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://gersbach.bme.duke.edu/

Teaching (Spring 2026):

• BME 564L.001, GENOME ENGINEERING LAB Synopsis

  Hudson 212, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

• BME 564L.01L, GENOME ENGINEERING LAB Synopsis

  Teer 0005, F 01:25 PM-04:25 PM

Education:

Postdoctoral Fellow	The Scripps Research Institute	2009
PhD	Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University	2006
BS	Georgia Institute of Technology	2001

Specialties:

Drug Delivery
Genomics
Tissue Repair, Tissue Engineering
Polymer and Protein Engineering
Biological Materials

Research Interests:

Dr. Gersbach’s research interests are in gene therapy, biomolecular and cellular engineering, regenerative medicine, and synthetic biology.

Areas of Interest:

Gene therapy for hereditary disorders and tissue regeneration
Methods for gene delivery and targeted genome modification
Engineering therapeutic proteins and biomolecules
Controlling cellular behavior and tissue growth with synthetic gene circuits

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. P Perez-Pinera, DD Kocak, CM Vockley, AF Adler, AM Kabadi, LR Polstein, PI Thakore, KA Glass, DG Ousterout, KW Leong, F Guilak, GE Crawford, TE Reddy, CA Gersbach, RNA-Guided Gene Activation by CRISPR-Cas9-Based Transcription Factors, Nature Methods (2013)
2. DG Ousterout, P Perez-Pinera, PI Thakore, AM Kabadi, MT Brown, X Qin, O Fredrigo, V Mouly, JP Tremblay, CA Gersbach, Reading Frame Correction by Targeted Genome Editing Restores Dystrophin Expression in Cells from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Patients, Molecular Therapy, vol. 21 no. 9 (2013), pp. 1718-26
3. P. Perez-Pinera, D.G. Ousterout, J.M. Brunger, A.M. Farin, K.A. Glass, F. Guilak, G.E. Crawford, A.J. Hartemink, C.A. Gersbach, Synergistic and Tunable Human Gene Activation by Combinations of Engineered Transcription Factors, Nature Methods, vol. 10 no. 3 (2013), pp. 239-42
4. L.R. Polstein and C.A. Gersbach, Light-inducible spatiotemporal control of gene activation by customizable zinc finger transcription factors, Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 134 no. 40 (2012), pp. 16480-3
5. P. Perez-Pinera, D.G. Ousterout, and C.A. Gersbach, Advances in targeted genome editing, Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, vol. 16 no. 3-4 (2012), pp. 268-77
6. C.A. Gersbach, T. Gaj, R.M. Gordley, A.C. Mercer, and C.F. Barbas, III., Targeted plasmid integration into the human genome by an engineered zinc-finger recombinase, Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 39 no. 17 (2011), pp. 7868-78
7. R.M. Gordley, C.A. Gersbach, and C.F. Barbas, III, Synthesis of programmable integrases, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, vol. 106 no. 13 (2009), pp. 5053-8
8. C. A. Gersbach, S. R. Coyer, J. M. Le Doux, and A. J. Garcia, Biomaterial-mediated retroviral gene transfer using self-assembled monolayers, Biomaterials, vol. 28 no. 34 (2007), pp. 5121 - 5127, ISSN 0142-9612