Chase Suiter (right) and Jay Shendure: 'Protein function depends on complex interactions, and if you can control which molecules meet, you can influence what they do.'
Chase Suiter grew up in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, a Gulf Coast town of just over 18,000 people. His path toward science didn’t begin with rigorous academic curriculum or an especially encouraging science teacher. Rather, it was a 16-year-old sophomore named Trisha Lipson who enabled Suiter and whose work ethic reshaped Suiter’s expectations for himself.
“She was incredibly disciplined academically, and that focus was contagious,” said Suiter, who recently completed his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. “We spent a lot of time studying together, and that proximity to someone so dedicated led to me holding myself to a higher standard.”
Fast forward 15 years, the couple will embark on their next phase of life on March 20th, when Lipson, a fourth year UW medical student, will learn the location of her residency. Regardless of their next destination, Suiter will bring with him a wealth of research experience that began as an undergraduate Biological Sciences major at the University of Mississippi.
There, Suiter joined the laboratory of biologist Brad Jones, studying how the nervous system develops in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). The experience marked his first immersion in molecular biology and his first close mentorship in research.
“The lab was small,” said Suiter, now 31. “It was just me, Brad, and a master’s student, so you learned by doing. Working directly with him was a crash course, but more importantly, it gave me confidence that I could actually function in a research environment.”
Jones also helped Suiter plan his next steps, guiding him through post-baccalaureate opportunities and graduate school applications. After graduating in 2017, Suiter spent two years at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis as a research technologist in the lab of Jun J. Yang. That two-year stint, Suiter said, was pivotal for his career.
“That was when research started feeling like something I could pursue as a career,” he said. Dr. Yang gave me a lot of independence and encouraged me to pursue a scientific career.”
From Memphis, Suiter and Lipson moved to Seattle in 2019, when he began a Ph.D. program in the lab of Jay Shendure, BBI’s Scientific Director and a Professor in the UW Medicine Department of Genome Sciences.
"Chase is a fountain of creative and impactful ideas,” Shendure said. “He has done a phenomenal job of bridging a scientific cultural divide with respect to the genomics vs. protein-focused technology development communities."
During his doctoral work, Suiter developed tools for proteome editing, an emerging frontier in biology. Scientists can now edit DNA routinely, but controlling proteins – the molecules that carry out most cellular functions – remains more difficult. Suiter and Shendure, with collaborators including University of Washington Nobel Laureate David Baker, co-authored a recent preprint paper entitled “Multiplex design and discovery of proximity handles for programmable proteome editing,” The manuscript describes tools for bringing protein molecules into proximity, allowing researchers to edit and modify the behaviors of individual proteins inside living cells.
Suiter explained why he is most proud of this paper among his others.
“DNA editing is routine at this point, but protein editing is just coming online,” he said. “For decades, we’ve wanted to control proteins with the same precision we control genes. What’s changed is that we can now design tools that bring molecules together in exactly the right way. Protein function depends on complex interactions, and if you can control which molecules meet, you can influence what they do.”
The idea echoes a theme that appears throughout Suiter’s career path: Proximity shapes outcomes. From studying alongside Lipson in high school to working closely with mentors during his training, his repeated exposure gradually changed his trajectory, much as controlled molecular interactions now guide the behavior of proteins in his research.
So, six months from now, when Suiter and Lipson likely have relocated to another city for her residency in orthopedic surgery, what will he miss about his six-plus years in Genome Sciences? Likely his mentor, Shendure.
“Jay has had the right personality for mentoring me,” Suiter said. “He wants you to be independent and he gives you a lot of freedom to make decisions. You can do a lot of things in Jay’s lab. And he’s unfailingly optimistic. You’re never going to get pessimism from Jay Shendure.”
