Michael Fischbach

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Michael Fischbach
Born(1980-11-03)November 3, 1980
Alma mater
Scientific career
Institutions
Websitefischbachgroup.org

Michael Andrew Fischbach (born November 3, 1980) is an American chemist, microbiologist, and geneticist. He is an associate professor of Bioengineering and ChEM-H Faculty Fellow at

Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator.[3]

Education

Fischbach earned his A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College in 2003. During that time (2000-2003), he worked in Jeffrey Settleman's lab at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center on the biochemistry of oncogenic mutants of the small GTPase Ras.[4] In 2007, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University, working in Christopher T. Walsh's laboratory at Harvard Medical School on iron acquisition in bacterial pathogens and the biochemistry of natural product biosynthesis.[5][6]

Career

Fischbach was a junior fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital (2007-2009) before joining the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco in 2009. He moved to Stanford University as an associate professor in September 2017. As a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, Fischbach is one of eight faculty members across Stanford, UCSF, and the University of California, Berkeley leading the CZ Biohub Microbiome Initiative, launched in 2018, with the goal of understanding how the microbiota can influence human health.[7]

Fischbach is currently a member of the scientific advisory board of NGM Biopharmaceuticals[8] and a co-founder of Revolution Medicines.[9]

Research

Fischbach's lab focuses on discovering and characterizing small molecules from microorganisms, with an emphasis on the human microbiome.[10][11]

Small molecules from the human microbiota

In 2014, Fischbach and his laboratory published a survey of biosynthetic genes in the

human microbiome, describing the ability of human-associated microbes to produce thiopeptide antibiotics.[12][13][14][15] The Fischbach lab discovered that the gut commensal Bacteroides fragilis produces the immune modulatory sphingolipid alpha-galactosylceramide,[16] showed that the production of neurotransmitters is common among commensal gut bacteria,[17] and discovered the biosynthetic pathway for a common class of bile acids produced by gut bacteria.[18]

Computational approaches to natural product discovery

Fischbach's lab developed an algorithm, ClusterFinder, that automates the process of identifying biosynthetic genes for small molecules in bacterial genome sequences.[19][20] With Marnix Medema, he co-developed a second algorithm for identifying biosynthetic gene clusters, antiSMASH,[21] with which ClusterFinder has been merged.

Personal life

Fischbach is married to Elizabeth Sattely, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford.[22]

External links

References

  1. ^ "Michael Fischbach's Profile | Stanford Profiles". profiles.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  2. ^ "Faculty Fellows | ChEM-H". chemh.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  3. ^ "Investigator Program – Chan Zuckerberg Biohub". Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  4. PMID 12874011
    .
  5. PMC 545562
    .
  6. PMC 2828520
    .
  7. ^ "Chan Zuckerberg Biohub funds new research efforts, microbiome initiative". News Center. 8 February 2017. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  8. ^ "Scientific Advisory Board - NGM Bio". www.ngmbio.com. Archived from the original on 2018-07-20. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  9. ^ "Team - Revolution Medicines". revolutionmedicines.com.
  10. ^ "Fischbach Group - Home". fischbachgroup.org.
  11. PMC 4641445
  12. PMC 4164201
    .
  13. ^ "Mining for Antibiotics, Right Under Our Noses". The New York Times. 2014-09-11.
  14. ^ Park, Alice (2014-09-12). "DIY Drugs: Antibiotics Could Soon Be Made Out of Your Own Bacteria". Time. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  15. ^ "Set a thief... Humanity's bacterial companions are a good place to look for new drugs". The Economist. 2014-09-20. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  16. PMC 3712910
    .
  17. PMC 4260654
    .
  18. PMC 4543561
    .
  19. PMC 4123684
    .
  20. PMID 26284671
    .
  21. ^ "antiSMASH bacterial version". antismash.secondarymetabolites.org.
  22. ^ "Elizabeth Sattely's Profile | Stanford Profiles". profiles.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
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