Lucas advises on a wide range of intellectual property matters to support clients in the life sciences industry. In particular, he manages patent portfolios; drafts and prosecutes patent applications; and assists with due diligence, freedom-to-operate studies, landscape analysis, and patentability opinions. Lucas combines his deep industry and technical experience with his business and legal acumen to help startups and emerging companies achieve strategic IP protection. He has experience representing clients in the following areas:
- Gene therapy (e.g., AAV capsid engineering, vector design, vector production)
- Cell therapy (e.g., autologous, allogenic)
- Synthetic biology (e.g., engineered gene circuits)
- Spatial transcriptomics (e.g., in situ hybridization, in situ sequencing, or in situ apture)
- Genomics (e.g., RNA-seq, DNA-seq, ATAC-seq, CHIP-seq)
- Bioinformatic analysis (e.g., algorithm development, machine learning)
- Minimal residual disease (MRD), liquid biopsy, and cfDNA/RNA methods
- Next generation sequencing methods (e.g., library preparation, sequencing, sequence analysis)
- Immunology (e.g., CAR-T, CAR-NK, engineered Tregs)
- Vaccines (e.g., mRNA, inactivated vaccines, viral vector vaccines)
- Antibodies (e.g., scFv, bispecific, diabodies, BiTEs, VHH, among others)
- Single-cell sequencing and multi-omics (e.g., RNA, DNA, or RNA and DNA from single cell)
- Functional genomics (e.g., whole genome screening with CRISPR/Cas9 libraries)
- Gene editing (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9)
Prior to joining Fenwick, Lucas was a technology specialist at a leading, global intellectual property law firm where he focused on patent portfolio management, drafting and prosecuting U.S. and international patent applications, and conducting due diligence, freedom-to-operate studies, and patent landscape analysis.
Prior to working in patent law, Lucas was a research scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In this position, he served as a cell biologist leading therapeutic hypothesis testing in the kidney disease space using in vitro disease modeling, gene editing, and phenotypic screening. He also established a stem cell laboratory and on-boarded gene editing technologies at Vertex’s Abingdon (UK) research site.
Lucas received his DPhil (Ph.D.) in cell and molecular biology (medical sciences) at the University of Oxford’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. As the Oxford-Sir David Weatherall Scholar, he investigated gene regulatory interactions governing the birth of hematopoietic stem cells during development at single cell resolution using transcriptomic and genomic profiling, functional genomics, stem cells, viral vectors, and gene editing, among other techniques.
While in law school, Lucas served as editor for the Mitchell Hamline Law Review and co-editor-in-chief for Cybaris®, an Intellectual Property Law Review.