Michael A. Fisher
Senior Fellow
Science and Technology Policy
Science Communication
Synthetic Biology
Dr. Michael A. Fisher is a Senior Fellow with the Federation of American Scientists, working on a range of issues across the science and technology policy landscape. He is the Director of the Congressional Science Policy Initiative, contributes to the Day One Project, and coordinates the COVID-19 Task Force. Mike also worked on the Ask a Scientist and Coronavirus Project teams.
Prior to joining FAS, Mike served as Field Director with the Welle for Congress campaign (2018, New Jersey Congressional District 4). With scientific training at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, UC Berkeley, and Princeton, Mike has developed technical expertise in infectious disease research, biofuels, synthetic biology, protein engineering, and molecular biology.
Mike’s graduate work with Professor Hecht at Princeton University is credited by the University of Texas at Austin’s Fraser Professor of Biochemistry Andy Ellington as establishing the field of synthetic systems biology.
In 2012 Mike was a Fellow in the inaugural Synthetic Biology Leadership Accelerator Program cohort and was an IGCC Public Policy and Biological Threats Training Program Fellow in 2008.
Mike also has experience in:
- Informal education as a STEM Educator with the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ.
- Public-private partnership creation as a co-founder of the UC Berkeley Postdoc Industry Exploration Program in 2010.
- Community organizing.
Mike earned his B.S. in Biology from The College of New Jersey and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University.
Publications
August 18, 2021
August 17, 2021
August 11, 2021
August 4, 2021
July 28, 2021
Other Coverage
Michael A. Fisher and Lindsay K. Milliken provide a detailed recipe for facilitating the use of science as a key element of the policy-making process. August 2021.
Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, a debilitating and sometimes life-threatening condition for an estimated 20-30% of those infected. The T. cruzi parasite is migrating into the southern United States due in part to climate change.
Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African Sleeping Sickness, survives by regulating gene expression predominantly at the RNA, rather than DNA, level. The T. brucei parasite threatens millions of people in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Designing proteins is a powerful tool to integrate into the production of chemicals.
We used protein engineering to increase the tolerance of a laboratory strain of E. coli to candidate biofuels.
There is a disconnect between what graduate students and postdocs are trained for, and the careers they enter into. There should be opportunities for graduate students and postdocs to develop nonacademic skillsets.
We found that designed, synthetic proteins can provide life-sustaining functions for a laboratory strain of E. coli.
Using fundamental principles that have been discovered about protein structure and stability to inform protein design can lead to productive design efforts.
