Michael Fischbach

Last updated
Michael Fischbach
Born(1980-11-03)November 3, 1980
Alma mater
Spouse Elizabeth Sattely
Awards National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award

HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholars Award

Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator
Scientific career
Institutions
Thesis Nonribosomal peptide biosynthesis: Directed evolution of assembly line enzymes and characterization of post-assembly line tailoring  (2007)
Doctoral advisor Christopher Walsh
Notable students Y. Erin Chen
Website fischbachgroup.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 Stanford University [1] [2] and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. [3]

Contents

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.

Engineered Bacteria Theraputics

Fischbach's team has made significant strides in engineering commensal bacteria for therapeutic purposes. They transformed the ubiquitous skin bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis into a topical vaccine platform. [22] [23] This approach generated potent, durable, and specific antibody responses in mice, potentially offering a new method for vaccine delivery. [24] In 2023, his postdoc Erin Chen led an effort to engineer skin bacteria to induce antitumor T cell responses against melanoma, highlighting the potential of the skin microbiome in cancer immunotherapy. [25] [26]

Personal life

Fischbach is married to Elizabeth Sattely, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford. [27]

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. ↑ Fischbach, MA; Settleman, J (2003). "Specific biochemical inactivation of oncogenic Ras proteins by nucleoside diphosphate kinase". Cancer Res. 63 (14): 4089–94. PMID   12874011.
  5. ↑ Fischbach, MA; Lin, H; Liu, DR; Walsh, CT (2005). "In vitro characterization of IroB, a pathogen-associated C-glycosyltransferase". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102 (3): 571–6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0408463102 . PMC   545562 . PMID   15598734.
  6. ↑ Walsh, CT; Fischbach, MA (2010). "Natural products version 2.0: connecting genes to molecules". J Am Chem Soc. 132 (8): 2469–93. doi:10.1021/ja909118a. PMC   2828520 . PMID   20121095.
  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. ↑ Donia, MS; Fischbach, MA (2015). "Small molecules from the human microbiota". Science. 349 (6246): 1254766. doi:10.1126/science.1254766. PMC   4641445 . PMID   26206939.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  12. ↑ Donia, MS; Cimermancic, P; Schulze, CJ; Wieland Brown, LC; Martin, J; Mitreva, M; Clardy, J; Linington, RG; Fischbach, MA (2014). "A systematic analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters in the human microbiome reveals a common family of antibiotics". Cell. 158 (6): 1402–14. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.08.032. PMC   4164201 . PMID   25215495.
  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. ↑ Wieland Brown, LC; Penaranda, C; Kashyap, PC; Williams, BB; Clardy, J; Kronenberg, M; Sonnenburg, JL; Comstock, LE; Bluestone, JA; Fischbach, MA (Jul 2013). "Production of α-galactosylceramide by a prominent member of the human gut microbiota". PLOS Biol. 11 (7): e1001610. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001610 . PMC   3712910 . PMID   23874157.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  17. ↑ Williams, BB; Van Benschoten, AH; Cimermancic, P; Donia, MS; Zimmermann, M; Taketani, M; Ishihara, A; Kashyap, PC; Fraser, JS; Fischbach, MA (Oct 2014). "Discovery and characterization of gut microbiota decarboxylases that can produce the neurotransmitter tryptamine". Cell Host Microbe. 16 (4): 495–503. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2014.09.001. PMC   4260654 . PMID   25263219.
  18. ↑ Devlin, AS; Fischbach, MA (Sep 2015). "A biosynthetic pathway for a prominent class of microbiota-derived bile acids". Nat Chem Biol. 11 (9): 685–90. doi:10.1038/nchembio.1864. PMC   4543561 . PMID   26192599.
  19. ↑ Cimermancic, P; Medema, MH; Claesen, J; Kurita, K; Wieland Brown, LC; Mavrommatis, K; Pati, A; Godfrey, PA; Koehrsen, M; Clardy, J; Birren, BW; Takano, E; Sali, A; Linington, RG; Fischbach, MA (2014). "Insights into secondary metabolism from a global analysis of prokaryotic biosynthetic gene clusters". Cell. 158 (2): 412–21. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.06.034. PMC   4123684 . PMID   25036635.
  20. ↑ Medema, MH; Fischbach, MA (Sep 2015). "Computational approaches to natural product discovery". Nat Chem Biol. 11 (9): 639–48. doi:10.1038/nchembio.1884. PMC   5024737 . PMID   26284671.
  21. ↑ "antiSMASH bacterial version". antismash.secondarymetabolites.org.
  22. ↑ Bousbaine, Djenet; Bauman, Katherine D.; Chen, Y. Erin; Lalgudi, Pranav V.; Nguyen, Tam T. D.; Swenson, Joyce M.; Yu, Victor K.; Tsang, Eunice; Conlan, Sean; Li, David B.; Jbara, Amina; Zhao, Aishan; Naziripour, Arash; Veinbachs, Alessandra; Lee, Yu E. (2024-12-11). "Discovery and engineering of the antibody response to a prominent skin commensal". Nature. 638 (8052): 1054–1064. doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08489-4. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   12045117 . PMID   39662508.
  23. ↑ "Stanford scientists transform ubiquitous skin bacterium into a topical vaccine". med.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2025-01-21.
  24. ↑ Lee, Jeong-Mi; Sage, Peter T. (2024-12-19). "Skin in the game — locally made antibodies fight resident bacteria" . Nature. 638 (8052): 894–896. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-04205-4. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   39702488.
  25. ↑ Chen, Y. Erin; Bousbaine, Djenet; Veinbachs, Alessandra; Atabakhsh, Katayoon; Dimas, Alex; Yu, Victor K.; Zhao, Aishan; Enright, Nora J.; Nagashima, Kazuki; Belkaid, Yasmine; Fischbach, Michael A. (2023-04-14). "Engineered skin bacteria induce antitumor T cell responses against melanoma". Science. 380 (6641): 203–210. Bibcode:2023Sci...380..203C. doi:10.1126/science.abp9563. PMC   12356174 . PMID   37053311.
  26. ↑ "Researchers use skin-colonizing bacteria to create a topical cancer therapy in mice". News Center. Retrieved 2025-01-21.
  27. ↑ "Elizabeth Sattely's Profile | Stanford Profiles". profiles.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
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