Cell-based gene therapies offer unprecedented promise for medicine. One day, it may be possible to cure degenerative diseases that consist of the loss of one or several specialized cell functions, as well as to decelerate the deterioration our bodies experience during aging. However, several hurdles must be surpassed in order to establish cell transplantation therapies, a major one being rejection by the recipient's immune system. This challenge is particularly prominent for autoimmune disorders, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, where the immune system mediates the destruction of self-tissues. My Ph.D. thesis work, carried out in the laboratories of Jack Strominger and Chad Cowan (Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology) at Harvard University, focused on understanding immune tolerance using pregnancy as a model, as well as spearheading the use of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to genetically manipulate human T cells. Currently, I am a postdoctoral scholar and the Jeffrey G. Klein Family Diabetes Fellow in the laboratories of Qizhi Tang (Department of Surgery) and Jeff Bluestone (Diabetes Center) at the University of California, San Francisco, where I am designing and developing the next generation of engineered regulatory T cell therapies (CAR Tregs) for type 1 diabetes and organ transplant rejection.