Genentech: Eleonore Tham | Principal Scientist — In Vivo and Ex Vivo Cell Engineering, Cell Therapy

Scientists / Our Scientists

Years at Genentech

I joined Genentech in 2024 as a Principal Scientist and group leader in Cell Therapy. My research has focused on technologies for engineering cells, spanning viral-vector delivery, genome editing, synthetic biology, and computational approaches. At Genentech, I lead a research group developing tools for in vivo and ex vivo cell engineering, and I value the close collaboration across disciplines.

Before joining Genentech, I led cell-therapy safety research at Sana Biotechnology and developed viral-vector and genome-editing approaches at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. I earned my PhD at MIT, where I worked at the intersection of synthetic biology and materials science to create engineered living materials and biocontainment technologies. Across these roles, my work has centered on building enabling technologies for biological engineering.

My group develops technologies for the in vivo and ex vivo engineering of immune cells and pluripotent stem cells. We combine viral-vector engineering, genome editing, and cell biology to build and evaluate approaches for introducing genetic changes in primary cells and stem-cell-derived systems.

A central part of our work is understanding how vector design, cellular context, and editing strategy affect cell-engineering outcomes. We use structured screening and quantitative analysis to compare approaches and identify the design principles that matter most.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD, Synthetic Biology – 2018
Mines ParisTech, Master in Executive Management – 2012
École Polytechnique, BSc, Physics – 2012
École Polytechnique, MSc, Applied Physics (minor in Biology) – 2012

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Eleonore Tham

Principal Scientist — In Vivo and Ex Vivo Cell Engineering, Cell Therapy