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 Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator.

Education

Fischbach earned his A.B. in

Biochemical Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology an ...

Sciences from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

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 Ras or RAS may refer to: Arts and media * RAS Records Real Authentic Sound, a reggae record label * Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol, a south Tyrolese public broadcasting service * Rás 1, an Icelandic radio station * Rás 2, an Icelandic radio stati ...

. 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 Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

on iron acquisition in bacterial pathogens and the biochemistry of natural product biosynthesis.

Career

Fischbach was a junior fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

(2007-2009) before joining the faculty of the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

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

Research

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

Small molecules from the human microbiota

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

human microbiome The human microbiome is the aggregate of all microbiota that reside on or within human tissues and biofluids along with the corresponding anatomical sites in which they reside, including the skin, mammary glands, seminal fluid, uterus, ovarian ...

, describing the ability of human-associated microbes to produce

thiopeptide Thiopeptides (thiazolyl peptides) are a class of peptide antibiotics produced by bacteria. They have antibiotic activity against Gram-positive bacteria, but little or no activity against Gram-negative bacteria. Many of the members of this class s ...

antibiotics. The Fischbach lab discovered that the gut commensal Bacteroides fragilis produces the immune modulatory sphingolipid alpha-galactosylceramide, showed that the production of neurotransmitters is common among commensal gut bacteria, and discovered the biosynthetic pathway for a common class of

bile acid Bile acids are steroid acids found predominantly in the bile of mammals and other vertebrates. Diverse bile acids are synthesized in the liver. Bile acids are conjugated with taurine or glycine residues to give anions called bile salts. Primary b ...

s produced by gut bacteria.

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. With Marnix Medema, he co-developed a second algorithm for identifying biosynthetic gene clusters, antiSMASH, with which ClusterFinder has been merged.

Personal life

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

External links

“Michael Fischbach: Making sense of the gut biome”
on

Stanford School of Engineering Stanford University School of Engineering is one of the schools of Stanford University. The current dean is Jennifer Widom, the former senior associate dean of faculty affairs and computer science chair. She is the school's 10th dean. List of de ...

’s "The Future of Everything with

Russ Altman Russ Biagio Altman is an American professor of bioengineering, genetics, medicine, and biomedical data science (and of computer science, by courtesy) and past chairman of the bioengineering department at Stanford University. Education Altman hol ...

" podcast

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischbach, Michael 21st-century American chemists American geneticists 1980 births Living people Harvard College alumni University of California, San Francisco faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni