Mike serves as faculty and is a member of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center in the Department of Bioprocessing in the Riggs School of Applied Life Science at the Keck Graduate Institute - a member of the Claremont Colleges - in Claremont, California. Mike's research and teaching focuses on all aspects of CMC for microbiome medicines (bacteria, bacteriophages and combinations thereof) as well as advanced cell and gene therapy (ACGT) approaches. Prior to KGI Mike founded founded both for-profit and not-for profit startups and exited them successfully. Out of his graduate work with Prof. Collins (MIT/BU), Mike co-founded Sample6, the worlds fastest enrichment-free food pathogen testing system. Having raised more than 35M in venture capital, grants and debt, the company was recognized by Forbes as one of the 25 hottest AgTech startups in 2017 and was acquired later that year. Michael also co-founded the nonprofit BiotechStart.org to facilitate the dissemination of successful business models for biotech startups, increase awareness among prospective founders, and help start more biotech companies. In recognition of his commercial and community building influence, he was recognized as the outstanding entrepreneur in life sciences in Massachusetts in 2018. He also sits on the Boards of both non-profit scientific (AddGene) and for-profit companies (Corvium and Xeno Bio). Prior to his doctoral degree, Mike graduated with a bachelors and a masters in biochemistry from the Free University of Berlin and was a recipient of the German Academic Exchange Fellowship (DAAD) to study at MIT. In addition to his scientific work, Mike previously worked at McKinsey & Company in Germany, as well as Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, MA.