Mario Escobar, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Positions
- Assistant Professor of Surgery
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Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Baylor College of Medicine
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine
- Houston, TX
- Surgery and Cardiomyopathies
- PhD from Rice University
- Houston, TX
- Biochemistry & Cell Biology
- BS from Brigham Young University
- Rexburg, ID
Professional Interests
- Synthetic Biology
- Cardiomyopathies
- CRISPR
Professional Statement
Dr. Mario Escobar is an assistant professor in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. A cellular biologist and bioengineer by training, he has broad expertise in synthetic biology, epigenome engineering, and molecular cardiology, with particular focus on heart failure, cardiac metabolism, and programmable control of gene expression in human cells.
His current research applies synthetic biology to engineer therapies for diseases of energetic dysregulation. Recognizing metabolic dysfunction as a fundamental driver of heart failure pathogenesis, he developed and validated a CRISPR activation system that targets the master regulators of mitochondrial biogenesis. The approach proved effective in multiple human cell lines and in vivo, where it generated new mitochondria and improved cardiac function following myocardial infarction (Escobar et al., Molecular Therapy, 2026). As the first application of CRISPR activation to control mitochondrial biogenesis, this work opens new therapeutic avenues for diseases driven by mitochondrial dysfunction and is now being advanced toward clinical treatment of cardiomyopathies.
Dr. Escobar's earlier research addressed a central challenge in gene regulation: how to reliably control which genes are switched on in human cells. Working in epigenome engineering, he built and systematically benchmarked CRISPR-based tools for this purpose, defining the rules that determine their efficacy (Escobar et al., ACS Synthetic Biology, 2022), and helped develop new classes of gene-regulatory effectors. These tools give researchers precise means to probe how the epigenome and DNA regulatory elements control gene expression, and they form the foundation of his current therapeutic work.
Dr. Escobar has a sustained record of competitive funding from governmental and private organizations, and his work has generated intellectual property with strong commercial potential. He is dedicated to training the next generation of scientists and physician-scientists, mentoring undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers as they develop new treatments for human disease.
His current research applies synthetic biology to engineer therapies for diseases of energetic dysregulation. Recognizing metabolic dysfunction as a fundamental driver of heart failure pathogenesis, he developed and validated a CRISPR activation system that targets the master regulators of mitochondrial biogenesis. The approach proved effective in multiple human cell lines and in vivo, where it generated new mitochondria and improved cardiac function following myocardial infarction (Escobar et al., Molecular Therapy, 2026). As the first application of CRISPR activation to control mitochondrial biogenesis, this work opens new therapeutic avenues for diseases driven by mitochondrial dysfunction and is now being advanced toward clinical treatment of cardiomyopathies.
Dr. Escobar's earlier research addressed a central challenge in gene regulation: how to reliably control which genes are switched on in human cells. Working in epigenome engineering, he built and systematically benchmarked CRISPR-based tools for this purpose, defining the rules that determine their efficacy (Escobar et al., ACS Synthetic Biology, 2022), and helped develop new classes of gene-regulatory effectors. These tools give researchers precise means to probe how the epigenome and DNA regulatory elements control gene expression, and they form the foundation of his current therapeutic work.
Dr. Escobar has a sustained record of competitive funding from governmental and private organizations, and his work has generated intellectual property with strong commercial potential. He is dedicated to training the next generation of scientists and physician-scientists, mentoring undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers as they develop new treatments for human disease.
Selected Publications
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Escobar M, Malik SA, Srinivasa MA, Mendez-Sosa MA, Miller JM, Lydon SL, Luong SN, Mathew PR, Abouleisa RRE, Chakravarty S, Pathan S, Mohamed TMA, Ghanta RK, Hilton IB. " CRISPR-Cas-based activation of PPARGC1A boosts endogenous mitochondria and enhances cardiac function after myocardial infarction " Mol Ther. ;
Pubmed PMID: 41806830. -
Srinivasa MA, Escobar M. " CRISPR-based Transcriptional Regulation: Technologies, Applications, and Future Directions " DNA (Basel). ;
Pubmed PMID: 41877893. -
Escobar M, Li J, Patel A, Liu S, Xu Q, Hilton IB. " Quantification of Genome Editing and Transcriptional Control Capabilities Reveals Hierarchies among Diverse CRISPR/Cas Systems in Human Cells " ACS Synth Biol. ;
Pubmed PMID: 36162812. -
Mahata B, Cabrera A, Brenner DA, Guerra-Resendez RS, Li J, Goell J, Wang K, Guo Y, Escobar M, Parthasarathy AK, Szadowski H, Bedford G, Reed DR, Kim S, Hilton IB. " Compact engineered human mechanosensitive transactivation modules enable potent and versatile synthetic transcriptional control " Nat Methods. ;
Pubmed PMID: 37813990.
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