From the University of Pennsylvania to Stanford, Marshall Padilla Builds a Future in RNA Nanomedicine
The first story in “Launching the Next Generation of Bioengineering Faculty” highlights how the Department of Bioengineering and the Mitchell Lab helped prepare Padilla to launch an interdisciplinary research program of his own.
Bioengineering advances through people who can move across disciplines, build new tools and train the next generation of scientists to ask questions that do not fit neatly inside one field.
This summer, the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania is highlighting members of its community who are beginning faculty careers at institutions across the country and around the world. The series, “Launching the Next Generation of Bioengineering Faculty,” begins with Marshall Padilla, a member of the Mitchell Lab whose next chapter will take him to Stanford University.
On Sept. 1, 2026, Padilla will join Stanford as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and as an Institute Scholar in Sarafan ChEM-H, an interdisciplinary institute focused on research at the intersection of chemistry, engineering and medicine.
At Stanford, Padilla will launch a lab focused on data-driven nanotechnology for drug delivery, with a particular emphasis on designing the next generation of RNA nanomedicines.
“Essentially, writing the rulebooks for how to design next-generation RNA nanomedicines,” says Padilla.
His future lab will bring together chemical synthesis, biophysical and analytical instrumentation, molecular and cellular biology and animal models. That breadth reflects both the complexity of the problems Padilla plans to study and the training environment that helped shape his approach at Penn Engineering.
Training Across Disciplines
RNA medicines, including some vaccines and emerging therapies, depend on delivery systems that can protect genetic instructions, move them through the body and help them reach the right cells. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), tiny delivery vehicles made from fat-like molecules, are one of the most important tools for that work.
In the Mitchell Lab, Padilla studied how these systems function at multiple scales, from their chemical makeup to their behavior in living models. That interdisciplinary training, he says, now anchors the research program he plans to build at Stanford.
“My time in Mike Mitchell’s lab was foundational in nearly every dimension,” says Padilla. “Scientifically, it’s where I learned to integrate chemical synthesis with the biophysics and in vivo models needed to understand why RNA lipid nanoparticles work, not just whether it does, which is the approach that now anchors my research program.”
Led by Michael J. Mitchell, Professor in Bioengineering in Penn Engineering, the Mitchell Lab develops new biomaterials and drug delivery technologies, with a particular focus on lipid nanoparticles and RNA therapeutics. For Padilla, the lab offered more than technical preparation. It also provided opportunities to lead independent and collaborative projects across Penn centers and institutes, industry partners and national labs, while mentoring graduate and undergraduate students.
That combination of scientific range and mentorship experience helped prepare him for the transition from trainee to faculty member.
“The breadth of Penn’s ecosystem, from the RNA Innovation community to clinical collaborators, also taught me how much faster science moves when it’s interdisciplinary,” says Padilla.
A Model for Mentorship
As Padilla prepares to launch his own research group, he says his first priority is people.
At Stanford, he plans to recruit and mentor a founding group of students and postdoctoral fellows while establishing a lab culture that supports both rigorous science and the people doing it. Scientifically, he aims to build the core platforms his group will need, including synthesis and biophysical characterization pipelines, while developing collaborations across Stanford’s Materials Science and Engineering department, Sarafan ChEM-H and the university’s broader medical, engineering and chemistry communities.
Padilla credits the Mitchell Lab with helping him understand how to build that kind of environment.
“Mike [Mitchell] modeled how to run a rigorous, ambitious, and genuinely supportive research group, and that’s the environment I want to build at Stanford,” says Padilla.
That lesson is central to what he hopes to carry forward. His research group will be built around diverse scientific backgrounds, reflecting the many kinds of expertise needed to improve drug delivery and RNA nanomedicine.
Support Behind the Science
Padilla also points to a wider network of mentors and collaborators who helped shape his path to the professoriate.
He credits Mitchell for creating a lab where he could grow into an independent scientist and the members of the Mitchell Lab for supporting him throughout his training. He also notes the support of Anh Le and the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry, which supported him through an NIH T90 Fellowship, as well as Kushol Gupta at the University of Pennsylvania Johnson Foundation Structural Biology and Biophysics Core, whose work with Padilla helped make biophysical applications a central part of his future lab.
“It takes dozens of motivated people to prepare one professor,” says Padilla.
The path to his faculty role was not quick. Padilla began applying for faculty positions in 2024 and, after nearly two years and more than 120 applications, received the opportunity he had been working toward.
“I got my dream job,” he says. “It was a very difficult process with many failures, but having that support network is crucial for staying positive and constantly approving the application material.”
For Padilla, the next step is not only a new title or a new institution. It is a chance to build a research community of his own, one shaped by the science, mentorship and collaboration that defined his time in the Department of Bioengineering.
