Elisa C. Clark, PhD

Utilizing broad biologics expertise to assist clients with patent prosecution and counseling for life science applications

Elisa C. Clark, PhD, received her doctorate in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. Her research focused on developing ex vivo models that mimic both acute and chronic immune challenges to study the epigenetic regulation of stemness in CD8⁺ T cells. Elisa was a coleader on multiple projects across interdisciplinary teams with expertise in molecular and cancer immunology, quantitative biology, and functional genomics. Her collaborative projects included work identifying flexibility in memory T-cell formation in response to acute infections and its importance in quantitative encoding of the memory compartment. She has extensive laboratory experience with phenotypic and functional characterization of T cells, adoptive transfer into solid tumor models, CAR-T transduction and expansion, and Cas9 editing in CD8⁺ T cells.

Prior to graduate school Elisa worked as an engineer on the Upstream Process Development team at ImmunoGen, Inc. (now AbbVie). She focused on scale-up of monoclonal antibody bioreactor processes for antibody-drug conjugate production and cell culture media formulation. She also has research experience in biomaterials fabrication for tissue engineering applications and human iPSC-based disease modeling from her undergraduate and early graduate work. Elisa was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program predoctoral fellowship.

Select Publications

“Reversible, Tunable Epigenetic Silencing of TCF1 Generates Flexibility in the T Cell Memory Decision,” Immunity, 57(2), 2024 (coauthor).

 “TFPa/HADHA is Required for Fatty Acid Beta-oxidation and Cardiolipin Re-modeling in Human Cardiomyocytes,” Nature Communications, 10(1), 2019 (coauthor).

 “Comprehensive Manipulation of Glycosylation Profiles across Development Scales,” mAbs, 11(2), 2019 (coauthor).

 “Evaluation of Cell-laden Polyelectrolyte Hydrogels Incorporating Poly(L-Lysine) for Applications in Cartilage Tissue Engineering,” Biomaterials, 83, 2016 (coauthor).