The Chemistry/Biology Interface Training Program (CBI) at Sarafan ChEM-H recently celebrated its tenth anniversary as a program designed to supplement PhD programs in the Schools of Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, and Medicine at Stanford. For students seeking to stretch their molecular research beyond the traditional boundaries of their home departments, it has, so far, included an impressive 155 students and alumni who have benefitted from additional opportunities for networking and peer-mentoring, first-year lab rotations, coursework in chemical biology and translational medicine, and additional career development activities. Over the past decade, these CBI fellows have worked on some of the most challenging interdisciplinary problems affecting human health, from creating new vaccines and antibody therapies against emerging viral pathogens to tackling antibiotic resistance and finding new ways to target neurodegeneration.

"The new science at the interface of disciplines is what's going to break open new areas of discovery."

"The new science at the interface of disciplines is what's going to break open new areas of discovery," said Carolyn Bertozzi, Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and director of the CBI Program since its inception. 

CBI alumni have gone on to become company founders, biotech entrepreneurs, and professors who are leading the charge in innovative chemical biology spaces. Join us in celebrating a decade of collaboration, molecular problem solving, and interdisciplinary creativity with a look back on some of the many accomplishments of 10 cohorts of CBI fellows!

A decade of excellence

Since its inception, the CBI program has grown from an initial cohort of 10 students to 72 current trainees and 83 alumni who are now entering a variety of scientific careers, equipped with unique molecular perspectives and skill sets bridging chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine to tackle hard problems facing human and planetary health. A remarkable 61% of these trailblazing CBI trainees have completed PhDs in laboratories outside of their home departments. 

“I think that this is the next generation of scientists who are going to be future leaders and who are going to change the world. I really believe that,” said Christine Jacobs Wagner in an interview when she became co-director of the CBI program with Carolyn Bertozzi.

“I think that this is the next generation of scientists who are going to be future leaders and who are going to change the world. I really believe that."

Jacobs-Wagner, Dennis Cunningham Professor and professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and professor of microbiology and immunology in the School of Medicine, became co-director of the CBI program in 2025.

Her belief in CBI already appears to be coming to fruition. Collectively since 2016, CBI trainees have published over 280 scientific papers and filed 115 unique patents for their scientific inventions during their time at Stanford. Approximately 10% of CBI alumni have gone on to become company founders and CEOs, 49% have taken on other roles in the biotech industry, and about 37% have stayed in academia, either as postdoctoral scholars or university faculty at top institutions across the world.  

Meet the trainees

CBI trainees are not afraid to try something new. They borrow techniques and ideas from fields outside of their primary expertise and learn to apply them to their own scientific problems in innovative ways, from using materials science principles to develop polymer-based antibiotics to using protein engineering techniques to work towards blood cancer treatments that have fewer side effects. 

More CBI stories through the decade

Two Stanford PhD students win the Science and SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists

CBI fellow Uche Medoh, PhD ’24, was honored with Grand Prize and King Hung, PhD ’24, was a Category Winner in the 2025 Science and SciLife Lab Prize for Young Scientists, a prestigious international essay contest about their graduate work in the life sciences. They were honored, along with three other awardees, at a ceremony and banquet in Stockholm, Sweden, that coincided with Nobel Week in Stockholm, where they had the opportunity to meet with leading scientists in their fields and attend an award ceremony at the Grand Hôtel of Mirrors, the original site of the Nobel Prize banquet.

Related: Uche Medoh featured in Forbes 30 under 30

The art of chemistry, and the chemistry of art

During her PhD, CBI fellow Shoshana Williams, PhD ’25, traveled to Bangladesh to teach chemistry at a women’s university, where she learned to connect with her students through their love of henna art. “Chemistry is deeply involved in our everyday lives,” she said. “And you can look for it in any activity, passion, or interest.” 

Gut feelings

CBI fellow Julieta Gomez-Frittelli, PhD ’24, talks about bringing her chemical engineering mindset to a neuroscience lab to study the gut’s nervous system. "The fact that I was classically trained as a chemical engineer and not as a neuroscientist changes the way I approach problems and, in some ways, how I do research," she said. "I consider problems and data using an engineer’s logic that I think is sometimes a unique angle among my peers."

Making connections inside and outside the brain

During his PhD, CBI fellow Felix Alfonso, PhD ’20, worked on developing tools to visualize the electrical connections between cells in the brain. Read his reflections on the parallels between cellular connections and the human connections he formed in the CBI program.

Chemist, or biologist?

For her PhD, Laura Keller, PhD ’23, researched new chemical tools to study the different populations of bacteria that live in the gut microbiome. Read about how she merged her identities as both a chemist and a biologist in pursuit of understanding the complex microbial communities in the gastrointestinal tract.