Christine Jacobs-Wagner named co-director of Chemistry/Biology Interface Training Program at Sarafan ChEM-H

The Chemistry/Biology Interface (CBI) Training Program at Sarafan ChEM-H is an innovative interdisciplinary training program that encourages graduate students to address meaningful questions that cross traditional boundaries between fields. The program began with the arrival of Carolyn Bertozzi, the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H and Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, who has served as the Director of CBI since 2015. Sarafan ChEM-H recently appointed Christine Jacobs-Wagner, the Dennis Cunningham Professor, professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and professor of microbiology and immunology in the School of Medicine, to serve as Co-Director of the CBI program, alongside 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. And to be a small part of it is, of course, very exciting,” said Jacobs-Wagner, who is also an Institute Scholar at Sarafan ChEM-H.

Since its inception, the CBI program has grown from an initial cohort of 10 students to 84 current trainees and a growing list of alumni (53, and counting) who are entering the scientific workforce with a unique set of skills bridging chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine to solve some of the most pressing challenges in human health, like working towards a universal flu vaccine, creating designer enzymes for environmental sustainability, making resistance-proof antibiotics, and uncovering the molecular basis of Celiac disease.

CBI scholars hail from departments across the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering with 63% of students joining labs outside their home departments. The program is designed to supplement training supplied by the traditional degree-granting PhD programs at Stanford by creating additional opportunities for professional development, networking among other interdisciplinary scholars, and immersion in cross-disciplinary scientific communication.

Making interdisciplinary research the ‘comfort zone’

Jacobs-Wagner, who unashamedly calls herself a “huge fan” of interdisciplinary research did not enter this fandom by chance. Rather, her perspective was shaped by her own circuitous career journey, both as a graduate student and later as a professor.

Originally from Belgium, Jacobs-Wagner’s native language is French. While she was a talented student, excelling in subjects from mathematics to chemistry, the thorn in her side was learning languages. “I was terrible at learning English at school,” she said. “But I realized that if I wanted to go far in science, I needed to learn English. I felt the only way to do this was by immersing myself in the language.”

What started as a simple motivation to learn English ended up changing her career. After first coming to the U.S. to do research, Jacobs-Wagner continued globetrotting throughout her time as a graduate student, spending time in five different labs across four countries. To address the research questions she was trying to answer, she needed to learn techniques that were unfamiliar to her home laboratory. Instead of trying to figure these out on her own by reading the literature or collaborating, she decided that the best approach would be to immerse herself, not only in new verbal languages but also scientific ones.

“By going to different labs, I really saw the power of bringing together different areas of expertise,” she said. “I found that incredibly enriching, not only professionally, but also personally.”

Despite all she learned from her global adventures, Jacobs-Wagner admits that life might have been easier if the interdisciplinary scientific community and expertise that she craved were all in one place: a place where learning multiple scientific languages started early and where seamlessly crossing between fields was not unusual. It’s one of the things that attracted her to Sarafan ChEM-H as a faculty member and what inspires her vision for the CBI program.

“What we really hope to do is to form students who are going to be fluent in multiple scientific languages,” she said. “The ultimate goal is to melt the boundaries of discipline and make interdisciplinary research the comfort zone early in their careers when it’s easiest to learn these languages.”

Experts within walking distance

Establishing a scientific melting pot where scientists from different backgrounds work down the hall from each other and become friends, in addition to colleagues, is one of Jacobs-Wagner’s goals, not only for her own lab but also for the CBI program. Since moving her lab from Yale in 2019, she believes that the environment of shared expertise created by Sarafan ChEM-H has already greatly influenced the breadth of her own biology research program.

“Borrowing technology, perspectives, and questions from different fields provides a lot of opportunities for creative research. We incorporate a lot more chemistry than we used to because we are surrounded by chemistry, and the connection to human health has been changing my research pretty dramatically. In a good way,” she said.

During their training, CBI students also have access to the expertise and advanced instrumentation within Sarafan ChEM-H, provided by the Nucleus and Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA). The Nucleus provides state-of-the-art instrumentation that is often not available in academia, together with scientific directors, many recruited from industry, who provide hands-on instruction for everything from metabolomics to structural biology—the types of techniques that Jacobs-Wagner had to travel from lab to lab to learn. Similarly, the IMA provides the expertise to accelerate translation of academic discoveries into potential therapies that will reach patients more quickly.

As co-director of CBI, Jacobs-Wagner is looking forward to her continued work with students in the program and is optimistic about the future of science in their hands.

 “In my view, the CBI program is truly the premier model for PhD programs,” she said. “What I would love to contribute is to keep innovating, to keep adapting, and to keep listening to students to address their needs as the landscape of science evolves.”

Bertozzi, an Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, is a professor of chemistry and, by courtesy, of radiology and chemical and systems biology in the School of Medicine. She is also the Baker Family Director and an Institute Scholar of Sarafan ChEM-H and a member of Stanford Bio-X, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI), Stanford Cancer Institute, Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Jacobs-Wagner is a Dennis Cunningham Professor, professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a professor of microbiology and immunology in the School of Medicine. She is also an Institute Scholar of Sarafan ChEM-H and a member of Bio-X.