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Articles by Christopher J.
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3 Takeaways From Ginkgo Ferment 2024: A Story Told in Buttons
3 Takeaways From Ginkgo Ferment 2024: A Story Told in Buttons
By Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
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6 Communication Tips For Biotech Founders & Entrepreneurs
6 Communication Tips For Biotech Founders & Entrepreneurs
By Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
Contributions
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What do you do if your strategic communications network needs expanding?
Start by creating a living list of "watering holes" (conferences, media, organizations, etc) our target audience values. Plug yourself into those information sources and consume the content they produce so you can learn alongside your audience. From there, get a picture of the relevant key players and their work. That allows you to more fully understand the ecosystem and clarify your role in it. Once you have watering holes and critical players, prioritize them and establish action items to present your organization in them. Use what you've learned to select potential talks to give, content to produce, opportunities to meet people, and so on. With a bird's eye view, you can set timelines and devote resources to ensure smooth execution.
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What do you do if you want to connect with potential clients in strategic communications?
You can't force relationship-building, especially if you want to grow a client base. This is tricky because you have goals that depend on expanding your network. However, fostering relationships is about planting seeds without necessarily knowing which (if any) will bear the most fruit. While counterintuitive, take networking opportunities with ZERO expectations. You can present yourself more authentically by simply allowing yourself to be an engaged and interested party. Following your interests and curiosities helps a lot here. To nurture relationships, be willing to make the effort and be helpful. Make time for catch-up chats and find opportunities to support others. Invest in your ecosystem, and it can do the same for you.
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Here's how you can enhance communication strategies in Strategic Communications through strategic thinking.
When communicating with expert audiences, understanding them often comes down to how well you can listen and immerse yourself in their world. It can be challenging to find the right message and speak at their level without building a solid knowledge base in your own right. To do that… -Diligently read and consume content from leading media outlets, journals, and competitors you know they value. -Attend talks and conferences to hear how they talk to their peers and what current topics of discussion are. -Conduct interviews with audience members and use them to progressively gut check the notions you are building. In short, it’s not just about the data you can collect. It’s also about your ability to respect their craft through learning.
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How can you make the most of biotechnology conferences?
100%. If you’re going to a conference, make sure you there to be a true part of the event, not a silent observer. Be yourself and let your ideas fly. (Well just the relevant ones!) The energy you bring to a conference is indicative of the energy you get back out of it. SO, be sure to chat with like-minded people, introduce yourself, and ASK QUESTIONS. Don’t force it, but let your natural scientific self loose! Finally, after all that hard work be sure to maintain the network by following up and (more importantly) staying in touch the awesome people you connected with. For more tips on maximizing your conference experience, check out this piece I wrote a little while back. https://cglife.com/blog/scientific-conference-tips/
Activity
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🌟 With school out for the summer, we’re opening our doors to the littlest members of our extended work family, giving our children a chance to see…
🌟 With school out for the summer, we’re opening our doors to the littlest members of our extended work family, giving our children a chance to see…
Liked by Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
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Honored to receive this support for my research!
Honored to receive this support for my research!
Liked by Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
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Biotech startup leaders seem to implicitly understand that #PublicRelations and #MediaRelations impact their ability to raise funds for their science…
Biotech startup leaders seem to implicitly understand that #PublicRelations and #MediaRelations impact their ability to raise funds for their science…
Liked by Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
Experience & Education
Licenses & Certifications
Volunteer Experience
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Member, ACS San Diego Chapter Younger Chemists Committee
Younger Chemists Committee - American Chemical Society
- 1 year 8 months
Science and Technology
Helped plan and execute career networking and mentoring events for the Chemistry and the Life Sciences community in San Diego.
Panel Speaker for Two Meet & Greet Career Journey discussions with undergraduate and graduate students.
Created and managed YCC San Diego Section's LinkedIn page. -
Representative, Chemistry Graduate Student Council
University of California San Diego
- 1 year 1 month
Education
Reelected to the CGSC for a second term (2018-19)
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Chair & Representative, Chemistry Graduate Student Council (CGSC)
University of California San Diego
- 1 year 1 month
Education
Inaugural member, representing students who entered the department in 2013.
Elected unanimously as Chair (2017-18) - wrote and led adoption of Constitution and Membership Bylaws
Organized Council meetings and meetings with Departmental Leaders, such as the Graduate Director, Graduate Advisory Committee, and Dept. Chair.
Led a successful effort to raise the graduate stipend for approximately 250 students ($1K increase in both 2018 and 2019, totaling ~$500K)
Worked to…Inaugural member, representing students who entered the department in 2013.
Elected unanimously as Chair (2017-18) - wrote and led adoption of Constitution and Membership Bylaws
Organized Council meetings and meetings with Departmental Leaders, such as the Graduate Director, Graduate Advisory Committee, and Dept. Chair.
Led a successful effort to raise the graduate stipend for approximately 250 students ($1K increase in both 2018 and 2019, totaling ~$500K)
Worked to instill significant departmental communication by way of leading Town Halls, improve Graduate orientation, a Wellness Forum, and start a newsletter
Led a successful effort to instill graduate student representatives on Graduate Advisory Committee through discussions with the CGSC and departmental leadership
Helped to organize meetings to discuss the option of a Graduate Student Insurance, to help fill a significant Worker’s Compensation gap
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Member
The Graduate Student Association - Legislative Advocacy Committee
- 2 years 1 month
Politics
The GSA Legislative Advocacy Committee (formerly known as Lobby Corp) is responsible for representing and communicating the interests of Graduate Students to local and state governments.
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Co-founder of the Chemistry Graduate Student Council (CGSC)
University of California San Diego
- 8 months
Education
Worked with the other Chemistry GSA representatives (2016-17 term) to create a graduate student council for the Chemistry Department.
Identified areas of need in the Graduate population of the department necessitating a Graduate student run council/organization.
Led town halls and Forums to discuss the CGSC’s roles and function
Worked to collect nominees, candidates, and create a fair election of the representatives
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Advocate and Member of Working Group on Research Funding
Student Advocates for Graduate Education
- 3 months
Science and Technology
I worked with a small group of graduate students from several leading research universities to write a short paper that argues for increasing federal funding for academic research on behalf of graduate researchers
In addition, I was invited by UC San Diego's Graduate Student Association (GSA) Vice-President of External Affairs and Legislative Liaison to join them on a trip to Washington D.C. for SAGE's annual Day on the Hill (March 26th-29th, 2017) to advocate for Research Funding and…I worked with a small group of graduate students from several leading research universities to write a short paper that argues for increasing federal funding for academic research on behalf of graduate researchers
In addition, I was invited by UC San Diego's Graduate Student Association (GSA) Vice-President of External Affairs and Legislative Liaison to join them on a trip to Washington D.C. for SAGE's annual Day on the Hill (March 26th-29th, 2017) to advocate for Research Funding and other pertinent SAGE positions in meetings with staff from U.S. congressional and senatorial offices.
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Graduate Student Association Representative for the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department
University of California, San Diego
- 1 year 1 month
Politics
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Member
Graduate Student member of the Student Conducts Standards Group (SCSG)
- 7 months
Education
The Student Conduct Standards Group reviews, and edits the student conduct code at UCSD in efforts to make the code more functional for the UCSD community.
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Mentor
Research Scholars
- Present 9 years 1 month
Education
Mentored a high school student interested in learning about research laboratories.
Taught the student basic laboratory tasks such as notebook keeping, chemical safety, and presentation of scientific material.
Helped the student put together a research project for a poster presentation, which included instructing the student on chemical synthesis and mammalian cell culture.
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Representative for the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UCSD
The California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education
- Present 9 years 9 months
Education
Answered questions and offered advice about the Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduate Program at UCSD to perspective students.
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Mentor
Research Scholars
- Present 10 years 1 month
Education
Mentored a high school student interested in learning about research laboratories.
Taught the student basic laboratory tasks such as notebook keeping, chemical safety, and presentation of scientific material.
Helped the student put together a research project for a poster presentation, which included instructing the student on chemical synthesis and mammalian cell culture.
Publications
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Development of biomimetic glycopolymer scaffolds to probe the role of sialoglycan display on influenza A host recognition.
eScholarship
Despite significant surveillance and vaccine development efforts, Influenza A viruses remain a significant challenge to human health. A critical aspect of routine surveillance concerns strain specificity towards sialylated glycan structures on the cell surface and avoidance of host decoy structures on secreted mucins. Although methods of assessing glycan-binding phenotype, such as glycan microarray technology, have generated significant advances in our understanding of these interactions, the…
Despite significant surveillance and vaccine development efforts, Influenza A viruses remain a significant challenge to human health. A critical aspect of routine surveillance concerns strain specificity towards sialylated glycan structures on the cell surface and avoidance of host decoy structures on secreted mucins. Although methods of assessing glycan-binding phenotype, such as glycan microarray technology, have generated significant advances in our understanding of these interactions, the inherent complexity of this multivalent recognition event and the glycocalyx itself necessitate additional methods that better recapitulate the full molecular context of viral binding. Here in, I present multivalent glycopolymers displaying sialoglycans to better recapitulate native IAV receptor binding events in a chemically-controlled manner. This biologically inspired chemical approach facilitates the collection of quantitative whole-virus binding to our multivalent scaffolds presented either on glass slide/bead arrays or in soluble form, which can be combined to assess viral binding preference across varying geometric parameters including glycan density, valency, and scaffold length. In addition, I report the utilization of lipid bearing sialoglycopolymers to remodel the glycocalyx of mammalian cells as a tool to investigate viral recognition of sialylated glycan structures on living cell surfaces. In this bottom-up approach, we can readily control the glycan structure installation and Influenza receptor display on the cell membrane. Importantly, these glycomaterials appear able to restore viral adhesion to sialic acid deficient cells. By combining existing technologies with this method, we aim to better uncover structural features that enhance influenza’s primary recognition of host cells.
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Small Molecule Antagonist of Cell Surface Glycosaminoglycans Restricts Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells in a Pluripotent State
Stem Cells
Recently, the field of stem cell-based regeneration has turned its attention toward chemical approaches for controlling the pluripotency and differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) using drug-like small molecule modulators. Growth factor receptors or their associated downstream kinases that regulate intracellular signaling pathways during differentiation are typically the targets for these molecules. The glycocalyx, which plays an essential role in actuating responses to growth factors…
Recently, the field of stem cell-based regeneration has turned its attention toward chemical approaches for controlling the pluripotency and differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) using drug-like small molecule modulators. Growth factor receptors or their associated downstream kinases that regulate intracellular signaling pathways during differentiation are typically the targets for these molecules. The glycocalyx, which plays an essential role in actuating responses to growth factors at the cellular boundary, offers an underexplored opportunity for intervention using small molecules to influence differentiation. Here, we show that surfen, an antagonist of cell-surface glycosaminoglycans required for growth factor association with cognate receptors, acts as a potent and general inhibitor of differentiation and promoter of pluripotency in mouse ESCs. This finding shows that drugging the stem cell Glycome with small molecules to silence differentiation cues can provide a powerful new alternative to existing techniques for controlling stem cell fate.
Other authorsSee publication -
Synthetic Mucus Nanobarriers for Identification of Glycan-Dependent Primary Influenza A Infection Inhibitors
ACS Central Science
Current drugs against the influenza A virus (IAV) act by inhibiting viral neuraminidase (NA) enzymes responsible for the release of budding virions from sialoglycans on infected cells. Here, we describe an approach focused on a search for inhibitors that reinforce the protective functions of mucosal barriers that trap viruses en route to the target cells. We have generated mimetics of sialo-glycoproteins that insert into the viral envelope to provide a well-defined mucus-like environment…
Current drugs against the influenza A virus (IAV) act by inhibiting viral neuraminidase (NA) enzymes responsible for the release of budding virions from sialoglycans on infected cells. Here, we describe an approach focused on a search for inhibitors that reinforce the protective functions of mucosal barriers that trap viruses en route to the target cells. We have generated mimetics of sialo-glycoproteins that insert into the viral envelope to provide a well-defined mucus-like environment encapsulating the virus. By introducing this barrier, which the virus must breach using its NA enzymes to infect a host cell, into a screening platform, we have been able to identify compounds that provide significant protection against IAV infection. This approach may facilitate the discovery of potent new IAV prophylactics among compounds with NA activities too weak to emerge from traditional drug screens.
Other authorsSee publication -
Glycomaterials for probing host–pathogen interactions and the immune response
Experimental Biology and Medicine
The initial engagement of host cells by pathogens is often mediated by glycan structures presented on the cell surface. Various components of the glycocalyx can be targeted by pathogens for adhesion to facilitate infection. Glycans also play integral roles in the modulation of the host immune response to infection. Therefore, understanding the parameters that define glycan interactions with both pathogens and the various components of the host immune system can aid in the development of…
The initial engagement of host cells by pathogens is often mediated by glycan structures presented on the cell surface. Various components of the glycocalyx can be targeted by pathogens for adhesion to facilitate infection. Glycans also play integral roles in the modulation of the host immune response to infection. Therefore, understanding the parameters that define glycan interactions with both pathogens and the various components of the host immune system can aid in the development of strategies to prevent, interrupt, or manage infection. Glycomaterials provide a unique and powerful tool with which to interrogate the compositional and functional complexity of the glycocalyx. The objective of this review is to highlight some key contributions from this area of research in deciphering the mechanisms of pathogenesis and the associated host response.
Other authors -
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Capture and characterization of influenza A virus from primary samples using glycan bead arrays
Virology
Influenza A viruses (IAVs) utilize sialylated host glycans as ligands for binding and infection. The glycan-binding preference of IAV hemagglutinin (HA) is an important determinant of host specificity. Propagation of IAV in embryonated chicken eggs and cultured mammalian cells yields viruses with amino acid substitutions in the HA that can alter the binding specificity. Therefore, it is important to determine the binding specificity of IAV directly in primary samples since it reflects the…
Influenza A viruses (IAVs) utilize sialylated host glycans as ligands for binding and infection. The glycan-binding preference of IAV hemagglutinin (HA) is an important determinant of host specificity. Propagation of IAV in embryonated chicken eggs and cultured mammalian cells yields viruses with amino acid substitutions in the HA that can alter the binding specificity. Therefore, it is important to determine the binding specificity of IAV directly in primary samples since it reflects the actual tropism of virus in nature. We developed a novel platform for analysis of IAV binding specificity in samples that contain very low virus titers. This platform consists of a high-density flexible glycan display on magnetic beads, which promotes multivalent interactions with the viral HA. Glycan-bound virus is detected by quantifying the viral neuraminidase activity via a fluorogenic reporter, 2′-(4-methylumbelliferyl)-α-d-N-acetylneuraminic acid. This method eliminates the need for labeling the virus and significantly enhances the sensitivity of detection.
Other authors -
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Auxin and Tryptophan Homeostasis Are Facilitated by the ISS1/VAS1 Aromatic Aminotransferase in Arabidopsis
Genetics
Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) plays a critical role in regulating numerous aspects of plant growth and development. While there is much genetic support for tryptophan-dependent (Trp-D) IAA synthesis pathways, there is little genetic evidence for tryptophan-independent (Trp-I) IAA synthesis pathways. Using Arabidopsis, we identified two mutant alleles of ISS1 (Indole Severe Sensitive) that display indole-dependent IAA overproduction phenotypes including leaf epinasty and adventitious rooting…
Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) plays a critical role in regulating numerous aspects of plant growth and development. While there is much genetic support for tryptophan-dependent (Trp-D) IAA synthesis pathways, there is little genetic evidence for tryptophan-independent (Trp-I) IAA synthesis pathways. Using Arabidopsis, we identified two mutant alleles of ISS1 (Indole Severe Sensitive) that display indole-dependent IAA overproduction phenotypes including leaf epinasty and adventitious rooting. Stable isotope labeling showed that iss1, but not WT, uses primarily Trp-I IAA synthesis when grown on indole-supplemented medium. In contrast, both iss1 and WT use primarily Trp-D IAA synthesis when grown on unsupplemented medium. iss1 seedlings produce 8-fold higher levels of IAA when grown on indole and surprisingly have a 174-fold increase in Trp. These findings indicate that the iss1 mutant’s increase in Trp-I IAA synthesis is due to a loss of Trp catabolism. ISS1 was identified as At1g80360, a predicted aromatic aminotransferase, and in vitro and in vivo analysis confirmed this activity. At1g80360 was previously shown to primarily carry out the conversion of indole-3-pyruvic acid to Trp as an IAA homeostatic mechanism in young seedlings. Our results suggest that in addition to this activity, in more mature plants ISS1 has a role in Trp catabolism and possibly in the metabolism of other aromatic amino acids. We postulate that this loss of Trp catabolism impacts the use of Trp-D and/or Trp-I IAA synthesis pathways.
Other authorsSee publication -
Determination of Receptor Specificities for Whole Influenza Viruses using Multivalent Glycan Arrays
Chemical Communications
Influenza viruses bind to mucosal glycans to gain entry into a host organism and initiate infection. The target glycans are often displayed in multivalent arrangements on proteins; however, how glycan presentation influences viral specificity is poorly understood. Here, we report a microarray platform approximating native glycan display to facilitate such studies.
Other authors -
Honors & Awards
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Travel Grant
Graduate Student Association (GSA)
Monetary award to present research at the 256th ACS National Meeting in Boston, MA.
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Outstanding Graduate Student Leader
UCSD Graduate Student Association
“This award honors a UC-San Diego graduate student who has proven to be a strong and committed leader in the graduate student community. The awardee has tirelessly advocated for graduate students on their behalf, and has shown exceptional ability to represent the interests of the entire graduate student body. The actions of this awardee have significantly improved the lives of graduate students at UC-San Diego through advocacy.”
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Interfaces Graduate Training Program
UCSD Interfaces Graduate Program
Accepted into National Institute of Health supported Interfaces Training Program at the University of California San Diego
The program includes intensive laboratory course work related that develops functional skills that cross interdisciplinary boundaries.
http://interfaces.ucsd.edu/ -
Molecular Biophysics Training Grant
UCSD Molecular Biophysics Training Program
Received the National Institute of Health funded Molecular Biophysics Training Grant at the University of California San Diego
The program requires participation in strongly interdisciplinary course work related to biophysical techniques.
http://mbtg.ucsd.edu/index.html -
Cum Laude
Boston University College of Arts and Sciences
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Commencement Speaker
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Chosen to represent the class at the 2013 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Commencement at Boston University.
Organizations
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American Association for the Advancement of Science
Member
- PresentNote: Attended 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting Serving Society through Science Policy (2/16-2/20) in Boston, MA.
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American Chemical Society
Member
- PresentBiochemical Chemistry Division Carbohydrate Chemistry Division Physical Chemistry Division (Biophysical Chemistry Subdivision) Chemical Information Division
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National Association of Science Writers
Member
-Note: Participated in the NASW Mentoring Program, working with Alan S. Brown (Mechanical Engineering Editor, Freelance), and Internship fair at the 2017 AAAS meeting (2/16-2/20)
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Royal Society of Chemistry
Member
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American Society for Cell Biologists
Member
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More activity by Christopher J.
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Biotech startup leaders seem to implicitly understand that #PublicRelations and #MediaRelations impact their ability to raise funds for their science…
Biotech startup leaders seem to implicitly understand that #PublicRelations and #MediaRelations impact their ability to raise funds for their science…
Shared by Christopher J. Fisher, Ph.D.
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