Biochemistry professor Brian Fox has received a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship. The honor, which provides $75,000 in flexible funding, recognizes UW–Madison faculty members whose distinguished scholarship has advanced the frontiers of knowledge, and whose excellence also includes teaching or service.
Fox has devoted his professional career to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research group studies enzymes to learn their three-dimensional structures and how they carry out biological functions. Among their impactful findings, the Fox Lab captured an enzyme in its most reactive state, providing structural evidence for a new paradigm of diiron enzyme reactivity. Fox’s current research focuses on adapting enzymes from plants and bacteria to produce ingredients used in synthetic fibers and as precursors to pharmaceuticals and biodegradable plastics. His work has been patented by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and made available through material transfer and licensing agreements.
Beyond these and other groundbreaking research contributions, Fox has held several leadership roles on campus, including Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Policy and Integrity in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, chair of the Department of Biochemistry, and director of the NIH-funded Biotechnology Training Program. In each of these roles, he served for at least a decade.
Fox has played a central part in major, interdisciplinary research initiatives across campus. He co-led the multi-investigator team that founded the Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics, a large, NIH-funded program at UW–Madison and part of the NIH Protein Structure Initiative, which laid foundational groundwork for computational determination of protein three-dimensional structures. He has also been a key contributor to the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
In his decade as department chair, Fox strengthened the department’s research enterprise, recruited 19 faculty, and helped establish three national state-of-the-art research centers on campus. Reflecting on these accomplishments, Fox says, “You can’t do it all on your own; it’s too complicated. I’m proud of having a staff that would rise to the occasion when needed. That made it possible to do a lot of things, including supporting talented faculty members who are pushing the boundaries of biochemistry and growing our undergraduate enrollment. Many people contributed to that success, and it’s really gratifying to know we accomplished it together.”
Now, Fox looks forward to revitalizing his passion for scientific investigation.
“As I transition out of my service roles, and with support from the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship, I will have the privilege of time and flexible funds to do a few new things,” Fox says. “With a team of scientists at the Stellenbosch University Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation in South Africa, I’ll be working on computational prediction of proteins in emerging zoonotic pathogens, to help get ahead of the next pandemic. I’ll also be working with WARF as an international advocate to increase awareness of opportunities for technology transfer.”
Throughout his 32 years on campus, Fox has remained committed to education. He has consistently led four courses, including Biochemistry 625, which gives undergraduate and graduate students across schools and colleges exposure to how enzyme structure provides function, with special emphasis on the contributions of vitamins and essential elements for our metabolism, health and well-being. Outside of the classroom, his mentorship has prepared more than 130 high school, undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to conduct their own research and translate it into real-world impact.
“The glory of publications often rolls up to professors, postdocs, and senior scientists, but from a high school student intern to a tenured professor in the National Academies, I have seen a continuum of talent, ability to contribute, and opportunity to improve. For me as a leader, it is important to figure out how to get people to participate within an organization where they are engaged, respected for what they do, and given some authority to make decisions at their level of readiness,” says Fox.
When asked what advice he would give to emerging leaders, Fox adds, “Figure out who your teams are, give them responsibility and agency to their work. Learn to delegate and trust. Don’t micromanage, because you’re too busy to do your job and their job too. Don’t think you are too smart — others probably are smarter on essential tasks. Your job is to provide the organizational vision and commitment to make sure that it all happens and works. That’s it. This works across the board, from interactions between high school students, undergraduates and graduate students, to the postdoctoral fellows, staff and faculty, to a department chair, to a chancellor of a university. That’s what I’ve learned about how this organization can work best.”
Written by Catherine Steffel, Ph.D.