Karthik is a part of the Technology Development team at Life Edit Therapeutics, focused on applying protein engineering and directed evolution techniques to engineer CRISPR-based gene editing tools.

Prior to joining Life Edit, Karthik was a Virologist at Istari Oncology where he worked on engineering PVSRIPO, an oncolytic poliovirus. He has several years of experience as a Postdoctoral Scientist at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he isolated and developed broadly neutralizing antibodies and bispecific antibodies for respiratory viruses SARS-CoV-2, RSV, HMPV and HPIV and several single domain antibodies for immunomodulation of the tumor microenvironment.

Karthik received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University where he gained expertise in applying yeast surface display and mRNA display in engineering affinity ligands from hyperthermophilic non-antibody scaffolds to study signal transduction and human embryonic stem cell differentiation.