Brian Fox is chair and a professor in the the Department of Biochemistry. His research uses synthetic biology techniques to study the structure and reactivity of carbohydrate active enzymes, determining how protein-protein and protein-substrate interactions impact the outcomes of enzymatic catalysis. He sat down with Department of Biochemistry science writer Renata Solan to talk about his research, collaborations, and experience as an innovator.
What is your research about?
My lab studies enzymes to learn their 3-dimensional structures and how they carry out their many biological functions. We marvel in the beauty and capability of the natural world and seek to understand it. Our work crosses many realms from biomedical to bioenergy. We like to understand fundamental principles and delight when a discovery can be recognized to also have translational value.
What excites you about scientific research?
Scientific research is about asking the right questions about seemingly complex phenomena in a way that can bring a simple answer to guide the next question. The excitement comes with the realization of something entirely new, like when a wanderer crosses a ridge and suddenly views a new landscape. Over time, many new views build a richness of understanding that is the most satisfying outcome of intellectual endeavors.
How do you develop research questions?
I look for a topic where there is a lack of understanding and try to formulate what is not known and what would be gained by answering the question. I like simple questions because those can cleanly resolve themselves, support refinement to give a better question, yield new understanding, refine the learning to give a better question, and so it goes.
How does your work benefit from research partnerships and collaborations?
Research collaborations work best when the partners bring unique and complementary aspects to the partnership. I have been incredibly fortunate to have an extraordinaire group of researchers to work with, including students, staff, and faculty from all over the world. Collectively, teams ask better questions and obtain broader understanding.
What inspires you to innovate?
Some people say necessity is the mother of all invention, but to reduce necessity to practice, innovation must often lead the way. Doing things the same old way, and perhaps not getting a new insight is not inspiring. Trying out something totally new and gaining new insight is both inspiring and motivating to innovate again.
How have the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and entrepreneurial programs across UW–Madison’s campus contributed to your experience as an innovator?
WARF has been part of my experience on campus since the first months after I arrived in Madison. They have guided me on what an inventive act is, what the path to commercialization might be, and have supported many of my endeavors as a faculty. I have greatly benefited from their analysis of disclosed inventions (whether patented or not), gained refinement of focus during patent drafting, felt the thrill of engagement with potential licensing partners, and gained the benefit when our efforts led to tech transfer and commercialization. This has been a unique aspect of my career experience.
The Fox Lab is funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, philanthropic and private sector partners, and WARF.