Faculty Feature: Dr. Vincent Fischetti

For this newsletter’s Faculty Feature, Annalise Schweickart (SVG President) and Nick Bartelo (SVG Co-chair of Outreach) had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Vincent Fischetti, head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at Rockefeller University. Fischetti received his Ph.D. from New York University in Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology and a postdoc at Rockefeller University, where he began to work on defining the structure of the M protein. Fischetti became an assistant professor at Rockefeller in 1973, an associate professor in 1978, and a full professor in 1990. He is most well known for his research on and development therapeutics using lysin, an enzyme designed to burst open bacteria. In addition to his academic success, he has created multiple companies, and served on academic advisory boards. One company licensing Fischetti's technology, Contrafect, is currently performing Phase 3 clinical trials, of which the therapeutic industry is eagerly awaiting results. He is now in his 32nd year as a Rockefeller professor, continuing to pioneer the creation of novel technologies and cutting-edge research on the microbial world.

SVG: From your earliest experiences in studying biology, you had a lot of freedom in your work. Reflecting on your success, would you say that the lack of strict supervision had an influence on your ability to achieve your breakthroughs in science, or do you wish there was more structure?

Vischetti: I think structure is bad. I've always believed that you just follow your nose, and you do the experiments that you have to do that just satisfies your interest. If you're going on a strict path, then you're going to miss all the interesting things that are that are out there. There is a lot of luck in this! It's being right there at the right time, and making the right observation and moving in that direction. I may have a grant on a project, but never stuck to that project. I always followed the way I would want to go. I may not have had the progress that the grant originally was for, but there was still high progress. So we always got funded.

SVG: Since you first developed a therapeutic approach to bacterial infections using lysin over 20 years ago, you have added an enormous number of patents using this technology. Do you have advice on the patent process for graduate students who believe they have developed a new method?

Vischetti: When I made an observation about a molecule in the M protein, I learned a real lesson that unless you patent your technology, it'll never be developed. No one will touch it unless they have at least 20 years or 15 years to regain their investment. 

Unfortunately, now, the patent office is first to patent, not first to invent. It's very frustrating because someone could just write a patent without doing any experiments and beat you on an idea that you may have. Then you have to figure out ways of getting around it. You have to take the idea, and change it to make it novel. If it's a good idea, you have to stay with it, and just try to change it to a way that you can get a patent out of it.

SVG: What do you think is the most exciting area of research in therapeutics or drug discovery in your field that you think is going to be lucrative and you would suggest to grad students or postdocs to look into right now?

Vischetti: I think using immunotherapies currently used for cancer could be targeted for infectious disease. No one's really taken that tack. All vaccines against staph infection target proteins. Unfortunately, these are quickly changed by the bacteria, which is why current vaccines are not effective. However, if you can target carbohydrates of the bacteria with a high affinity IgG in the sense of a nanobody, this may allow for efficient treatment. You make a nanobody against the carbohydrate determinant, and then the bacteria is going to have a problem. 

SVG: Do you think you had any mentoring or relationships within your career that allowed you to find your success or learn how to problem solve in an efficient way?

Vischetti: Luckily, I was in a laboratory of physicians. We always thought about disease and disease control. This allowed me to think about applications of basic science to disease.

What I lacked, which I always encourage all my postdocs to get, was an MBA. Science is big business. You will be able to take your science and move it out the door much more rapidly, VC will not take advantage of you, and your work will be developed much more efficiently.