Biography

Ben is a postdoc in the Shalek Lab interested in applying single-cell genomics to improve cellular models of human disease and identify new drug targets and therapeutics. Ben’s research harnesses adult stem cell-derived organoids, particularly from the gastrointestinal tract to advance these next-generation cell models, and has focused on applying these models to inflammatory bowel disease.

Ben spent the first ~22 years of his life in and around Boulder, Colorado, including undergrad in Chemical & Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Deciding that 300+ days of sunshine and a culture of ‘work-life balance’ just wasn’t for him, he moved to Boston and embarked on PhD studies with Jeff Karp (Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School) and Robert Langer (MIT) through the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Program. In addition to research, Ben has a persistent entrepreneurial ‘itch’, including stints with the life sciences venture creation firm, Flagship Pioneering, and the Karp & Langer-founded biotech Frequency Therapeutics. When he’s not thinking about science or startups, Ben enjoys spending time with wife, traveling, and taking in the great outdoors.

Compressed phenotypic screens for complex multicellular models and high-content assays
  • Mead et al.,
  • bioRxiv,
  • 2023
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • R&D
  • Technology
  • Cancer
  • Computational Methods
  • Genomics
  • Statistics
  • Ben Mead
  • Conner Kummerlowe
  • Ivy Liu
  • Walaa Kattan
  • Thomas Nok Hin Cheng
  • Peter Winter
  • Alex K. Shalek
Cellular and transcriptional diversity over the course of human lactation
  • Nyquist et al.,
  • PNAS,
  • 2022
  • Immunology
  • Cell Atlas
  • Genomics
  • Biology
  • Medicine
  • Sarah Nyquist
  • Patricia Gao
  • Riley Drake
  • Kellie Kolb
  • Ben Mead
  • Alex K. Shalek
  • Brittany Goods
Screening for modulators of the cellular composition of gut epithelia via organoid models of intestinal stem cell differentiation
  • Mead et al.,
  • Nature Biomedical Engineering,
  • 2022
  • Immunology
  • Medicine
  • R&D
  • Technology
  • Biology
  • Computational Methods
  • Genomics
  • Ben Mead
  • Marko Vukovic
  • Conner Kummerlowe
  • José Ordovas-Montañes
  • Alex K. Shalek
Cellular and transcriptional diversity over the course of human lactation
  • Nyquist et al.,
  • bioRxiv,
  • 2021
  • Immunology
  • Biology
  • Cell Atlas
  • Genomics
  • Vincent Miao
  • Patricia Gao
  • Riley Drake
  • Kellie Kolb
  • Ben Mead
  • Alex K. Shalek
  • Brittany Goods
Live cell tagging tracking and isolation for spatial transcriptomics using photoactivatable cell dyes
  • Genshaft et al.,
  • Nature Communications,
  • 2021
  • Technology
  • Genomics
  • R&D
  • Alex Genshaft
  • Carly Ziegler
  • Constantine Tzouanas
  • Ben Mead
  • Andrew Navia
  • Alex K. Shalek
High-throughput organoid screening enables engineering of intestinal epithelial composition
  • Mead et al.,
  • bioRxiv,
  • 2020
  • Technology
  • Medicine
  • Biology
  • R&D
  • Genomics
  • Ben Mead
  • Marko Vukovic
  • José Ordovas-Montañes
  • Alex K. Shalek
SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2 is an interferon-stimulated gene in human airway epithelial cells and is detected in specific cell subsets across tissues
  • Ziegler et al.,
  • Cell,
  • 2020
  • Genomics
  • Cell Atlas
  • Immunology
  • Biology
  • Statistics
  • Infectious Disease
  • Carly Ziegler
  • Sam Allon
  • Sarah Nyquist
  • Vincent Miao
  • Constantine Tzouanas
  • Marc Wadsworth II
  • Sam Kazer
  • Travis Hughes
  • Benjamin Doran
  • James Gatter
  • Marko Vukovic
  • Ben Mead
  • Shaina Carroll
  • Alex K. Shalek
  • José Ordovas-Montañes
Spatially-resolved live cell tagging and isolation using protected photoactivatable cell dyes
  • Genshaft et al.,
  • bioRxiv,
  • 2020
  • Chemistry
  • Cancer
  • Biology
  • R&D
  • Genomics
  • Technology
  • Alex Genshaft
  • Carly Ziegler
  • Constantine Tzouanas
  • Ben Mead
  • Andrew Navia
  • Alex K. Shalek
Loss of DNA methyltransferase activity in primed human ES cells triggers increased cell-cell variability and transcriptional repression
  • Tsankov et al.,
  • Development,
  • 2019
  • Genomics
  • Biology
  • Marc Wadsworth II
  • Sam Allon
  • Ben Mead
  • Riley Drake
  • Alex K. Shalek
Harnessing single-cell genomics to improve the physiological fidelity of organoid-derived cell types
  • Mead B.E.* et al.,
  • BMC Biology,
  • 2018
  • Ben Mead
  • José Ordovas-Montañes
  • Travis Hughes
  • Marc Wadsworth II
  • Alex K. Shalek