Karl Clark

Professional Summary

Dr. Karl Clark is an associate professor of precision gene editing in the Department of Animal Science. Dr. Clark earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  He attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota, where he trained with Dr. Perry Hackett and helped develop the Sleeping Beauty transposon system, earning his Ph.D. from the Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics program.  Dr. Clark worked at Discovery Genomics, Inc., a gene therapy startup in Minneapolis, MN (acquired by privately held company, Immusoft), before returning to the University of Minnesota for post-doctoral training in Dr. Scott Fahrenkrug’s laboratory. There he helped improve genome-engineering applications in livestock and co-founded Recombinetics, Inc., a livestock genome-editing company.  He moved to Mayo Clinic to work and train with Dr. Stephen Ekker before starting his own laboratory.

Dr. Clark previously was an associate professor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  Dr. Clark’s research laboratory developed and used genome engineering technology, including technologies for small nucleotide changes, large DNA integration, and edits to mitochondrial DNA.  As co-director of the Functional Omics Resource at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Clark worked with clinicians and basic scientists to functionally test observed patient DNA variants, to determine if they are pathogenically contributing to patient disorders.  Beyond diagnosis, the team was interested in developing therapeutics ranging from small molecule drugs to biologics including cell and gene therapies.  Dr. Clark has an interest in behavioral genetics and is currently using the zebrafish model to understand genes involved in vertebrate rapid stress response.