Randy’s ma­jor re­search in­terests in­clude bio­lo­gical en­gin­eer­ing, syn­thetic bio­logy, func­tional ge­n­om­ics, and mo­lecu­lar medi­cine. His core re­search themes in­clude en­gin­eer­ing mi­cro­bial cells to re­cord and ma­nip­u­late in­test­inal physiology and the gut mi­cro­bi­ota (Schmidt, Nature, 2018; Schmidt, Sci­ence, In Press); the de­vel­op­ment of new gene edit­ing meth­ods with a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on in vivo and mul­ti­plex­ing ap­plic­a­tions (Platt, Cell, 2014; Platt, Cell Re­ports, 2017; Campa, Nature Meth­ods, 2019); and high through­put for­ward ge­netic screen­ing in vivo in an­imal mod­els to identify dis­ease drivers, dia­gnostic bio­mark­ers, drug tar­gets, and de­liv­ery vec­tors (Chow, Nature Neur­os­cience, 2017; Wang, Sci­ence Ad­vances, 2018).
Randy’s re­search ac­com­plish­ments have earned nu­mer­ous dis­tinc­tions, in­clud­ing the MIT Tech­no­logy Re­view’s In­nov­at­ors Un­der 35, Ep­pen­dorf Award for Young European In­vest­ig­at­ors, Stanisław Lem European Re­search Prize, EMBO Young In­vest­ig­ator, ETH Zurich Lat­sis Prize, Nature Re­search Award for Driv­ing Global Im­pact, Na­tional Sci­ence Found­a­tion Fel­low­ship, Whi­taker In­ter­na­tional Fel­low­ship, and No­vartis In­sti­tutes for Bio­Med­ical Re­search Scholar in Res­id­ence.