Michael Fischbach

Liu (Liao) Family Professor of Bioengineering, ChEM-H @Stanford.

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

Jon Clardy: 1943-2026
One of the most impactful, creative, and (quietly) irreverent practitioners of chemical biology. Transformed how we think about nature's chemicals: their structures, their role in biology. Loved him -- he had tremendous influence on my thinking.

[Brian Hie @BrianHie]

As with biological design, AI can also accelerate biological discovery.

In new work led by @_David_Li and @garykbrixi with @mfgrp, we show how genome language models enable systematic discovery of genetic elements, revealing a new class of reverse-transcriptase mechanisms.

[Garyk Brixi @garykbrixi]

Genomes are full of dark matter of unknown functions.

We present Minerva, a new method for discovery guided by genome language models. Minerva reveals the interactions hidden in non-coding DNA, pointing to hundreds of new putative RNAs and repetitive elements per bacterial genome. Minerva allows us to find and study elements invisible to traditional methods at orders of magnitude greater scale than before.

[David Li @_David_Li]

Excited to share Minerva, our approach using genome language models for biological discovery! Using Minerva, we find that UG27 reverse transcriptase systems encode variable arrays of diverse ncRNAs with a shared structure, each templating a short DNA hairpin. With @garykbrixi.

[Revolution Medicines @RevMedicines]

The U.S. FDA approved the first multi‑selective oral RAS inhibitor in metastatic pancreatic cancer.

More: https://t.co/6gvJhAZnMw

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

A motivated team in biotech can work miracles.

[Adam Feuerstein ✡️ @adamfeuerstein]

Our story:

FDA approves new pancreatic cancer drug expected to usher in new era of treatment
The therapy, Rasonque from Revolution Medicines $RVMD, nearly doubled overall survival in a key clinical trial

https://t.co/qobE8O6VAk

[Adam Feuerstein ✡️ @adamfeuerstein]

Finally, best news of the morning (and something you didn't expect so soon)...

Revolution Medicines $RVMD daraxonrasib Ph3 results in second-line pancreatic cancer.

Median overall survival in ITT patients (KRAS mutants + wild type combined) Dara 13.2 months vs chemo 6.7 months.

OS Hazard ratio 0.40

[Justin Eyquem @j_eyquem]

I am so excited to share our new paper in @Nature: the first programmable, site-specific integration of a large DNA payload into T cells in vivo.
A single IV injection results in therapeutic levels of TRAC-targeted CAR T cells in multiple models.

https://t.co/t3pyjHyGWS

a 🧵

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

3. Terrific. Do you have access to my Google docs? I'm wondering specifically about a doc called ***, and another called ***.

4. Wow, this is great. A few questions for you. First, are you able to propose email replies *in my style*, by reading and emulating my word choice and sentence structure, etc?

5. Second, by reading through my emails, all of which are stored my Gmail account (I never delete emails), can you discern patterns in how I respond to 'retail' emails in which people are asking to meet? Can you propose replies to people I typically agree to meet with offering times that are free in my calendar? And can you gently decline (or propose that I simply don't respond) to people to whom I typically don't offer meeting times?

2/2

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

Wow -- I hadn't seen Google announce this capability. I strongly encourage you try this set of prompts in Gemini:

1. Can you read my email?
2. Excellent. Are you able to see my calendar as well?

1/2

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

@patrickc Thank you Patrick. For anyone who prefers the (gratuitously) long form:

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

Today we report that an engineered skin bacterium, swabbed gently on the head of a mouse, can unleash a potent antibody response against a pathogen. Could lead to topical vaccines that are applied in a cream. @DjenetBousbaine led the charge... @Nature 1/55

[Jacob Trefethen @JacobTref]

Proud supporters of this at @open_phil after we saw @mfgrp’s wild paper on it a few years ago. Much left to figure out!

Chasing down “big-if-true” findings like this is a good fit for science philanthropy, since donors can move quickly, flexibly, reactively vs govt grant cycles

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Saw a talk this week on the trippiest thing: bacterial cultures on skin induce immune responses. At Michael Fischbach's lab, they demonstrated immunizing mice against tetanus by just dabbing an engineered version of a harmless staph culture on its head. Unlike intramuscular vaccination, the antibody levels don't seem to demonstrate any waning, even after a year.

This is both scientifically very interesting (can vaccines just be... creams?), and an amazing reminder of how much we still don't know. We could have discovered this decades ago, but somehow never noticed until now.

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

@pdhsu ....also the pomato!
https://t.co/a0kEAgsMtx

[Justin Eyquem @j_eyquem]

The Weill Cancer Hub is fostering groundbreaking @UCSF–@Stanford collaborations to develop transformative cancer therapies. I’m grateful to co-lead one of the selected teams with @mfgrp to advance next-generation in vivo CAR T cell therapy!

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

@srikosuri @jrkelly @DrewEndy lol — low expectations make it so easy to be pleasantly surprised.

[Michael Fischbach @mfgrp]

@baym lol -- I hope not

[Elliot Hershberg @ElliotHershberg]

I’ve been busy this week… 👀

Passed my PhD defense!

Insanely grateful for @mfgrp. Truly epic scientist and human.

[Christopher Barnes, Ph.D. @cobarnes27]

What an amazing story that was such a blast to collaborate on with @mfgrp lab!!! Phenomenal work led by @DjenetBousbaine and all co-authors!! Unroll this thread and be amazed 🤯👇🏾