Vincent Fischetti

By the late 1900s, he was exploring the impact of phage lysins, a novel form of antimicrobial ammunition, as an alternative to antibiotics, and found it to be a novel solution to target specific antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Fischetti published >250 articles, nearly 100 book chapters, and has coedited several books, the most popular of which is the ASM book Gram-Positive Pathogens, now in its 3rd edition.

He has been the editor-in-chief of Infection and Immunity for 10 years and Section Editor of J. of Immunology for 5 years.

He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors because of his >40 issued patents.

He is also a Fellow of the NY Academy of Sciences and received a Research Career Development Award from the NIH early in his career.

1. The Coiled Coil Structure of Streptococcal M Protein.

His lab was the first to clone and then sequence the M protein making it the first surface protein on gram-positive to be cloned and sequenced.

As such, the M protein was the archetypical molecule for surface proteins on gram-positive organisms.

The Protein A sequence was published just before the M protein but there was a sequencing error near the C terminus that was corrected after the M protein sequence was published.

Subsequent sequence data showed that the N-terminal region was the type-specific portion of the molecule and the C-terminal half was conserved among the many M proteins that are known.

This latter information allowed for strains to be typed genetically based on the variability of the N-terminal sequence rather than the cumbersome and expensive serological typing scheme developed by Rebecca Lancefield.

His Laboratory is the oldest continuous laboratory at Rockefeller that started in 1926 and headed by 4 leading scientists over its near 100-year history: Homer Swift, Maclyn McCarty, Emil Gotschlich and now Vincent Fischetti.

Keeping with the historical theme of infectious diseases, Fischetti's primary areas of research are bacterial pathogenesis, bacterial genomics, immunology, virology, microbiology, and therapeutics.

He was the first scientist to clone and sequence a surface protein on gram-positive bacteria, the M protein from S. pyogenes, and determine its unique coiled-coil structure.

He also was the first use phage lysins as a therapeutic and an effective alternative to conventional antibiotics.

Vincent A. Fischetti (born 1940) is a world renowned American microbiologist and immunologist.

He is Professor of and Head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at Rockefeller University in New York City.

He graduated in 1962, and went on to receive his master's degree in microbiology from Long Island University in 1967 and a Ph.D. degree with honors (Founders Day Award) in microbiology from New York University School of Medicine in 1970 under Alan Bernheimer.

He later conducted postdoctoral research in the Maclyn McCarty laboratory at Rockefeller University with John Zabriskie and Emil Gotschlich.

After receiving a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowship he spent a year at Albert Einstein College of Medicine under Barry Bloom, working on the isolation of cytokines.

Fischetti then returned to the McCarty lab at Rockefeller University to work on M protein.

Fischetti became an assistant professor at Rockefeller University in 1973, an Associate Professor 1978, and a full Professor in 1990.

He later served as the editor-in-chief of scientific journal, Infection and Immunity for 10 years and section editor of the Journal of Immunology for 5 years.

In 1974 he was appointed Assistant Professor and received his first NIH grant to study M protein, which began a project that was funded for 37 continuous years, 20 of which were 2 consecutive 10-year NIH MERIT awards (he was the first to receive consecutive MERIT awards).

Fischetti has been referred to as the "father of phage lysins" since his laboratory was the first to use phage lysins as therapeutics.

But this finding occurred later in his career.

His studies on the M protein of S. pyogenes revealed many basic discoveries regarding the way surface proteins on gram-positive bacteria were anchored to the peptidoglycan.

These findings had critical implications for vaccine development for gram-positive pathogens including streptococci.

In 1989, the journal Science published Fischetti's initial approaches to developing a Streptococcus pyogenes vaccine using an M-protein-based mucosal delivery approach, which he had developed and found effective at preventing non-type-specific streptococcal infections in mice.

The Fischetti laboratory was also instrumental in our understanding of how surface proteins are anchored in the gram-positive bacterial cell wall.

His lab identified the LPSTG signal sequence used by the transpeptidase sortase as the anchoring signal.

In 2006, Fischetti was developing a lysin-based oral-nasal spray that can be delivered into the noses and mouths of hospital and nursing-home patients to prevent colonization by MRSA staphylococci.

Tests on mice infected with MRSA found their survival rate was significantly improved, and human testing began in 2017.

He has since accumulated 'near 40 patents' most dealing with methods to prevent bacterial infections.

One such patent dealing with lysins to Acinetobacter was licensed by Bioharmony Therapeutics, Inc in 2019.

Several other lysin patents were licensed by ContraFect, a biotech company based in Yonkers NY.

ContraFect developed a Staphylococcal lysin that successfully completed FDA phase 1 and phase 2 human clinical trials, the only alternative to antibiotics to achieve these milestones.

His postdoctoral students include microbiologist Olaf Schneewind, who identified sortase after leaving the Fischetti lab.

Some of Fischetti's popular videos include those dealing with the topic: 'aged eggnog made with raw eggs is safer than drinking it fresh'.

Fischetti grew up in West Hempstead, Long Island, NY, and enrolled at Wagner College on a pre-dental track, before majoring in bacteriology and public health.