Eric Brown Senior Director: Microbial Pathogenesis Profile | Education/Background | Top Scientific Papers | Awards & Honors

"I joined Genentech at the end of 2006 to start a group focused on microbial pathogenesis. Previously, I had been involved in starting interdisciplinary programs directed toward understanding the molecular basis of infectious diseases at two academic institutions, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of California, San Francisco. Genentech offered the opportunity to perform outstanding basic research and also to translate these findings rapidly to improvements in patient care, a promise much harder to achieve in an academic setting. An explosion in information about pathogens, from genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and other investigations has made this a particularly opportune time for this effort. Like all areas of biology, progress in understanding microbial pathogenesis requires interactions among scientists with diverse expertise, perspectives, and approaches. The incredibly collaborative and interactive atmosphere at Genentech attracted me immediately and is a huge benefit in our progress toward new ways of treating infectious diseases."

Current Projects "We have a variety of projects already in our new department aimed at understanding the molecular interactions involved in initiating, propagating, and resolving infection. We actively and continuously try to understand the interface between host and pathogen, where perturbations of homeostasis lead to disease, often through excessive growth of the pathogen, but sometimes through dysregulated host responses. Some projects focus on a detailed analysis of microbial molecules that make an organism pathogenic; other projects focus on seeing infection from the perspective of the host. As a new department, we have a unique opportunity to investigate novel hypotheses and methods of approach to determine which aspects of the host-pathogen interface are most amenable to therapeutic intervention."

Collaborations "We have fruitful and productive interactions with other departments in Genentech, and discussions and collaborative experiments with scientists in Immunology Discovery have been very important as we develop the goals of our department. In addition, investigators in Development Sciences and in Clinical, as well as colleagues in Legal and Commercial groups have made extremely important contributions to our understanding of how to create a program that has the potential to resolve significant unmet medical needs. We also have numerous interactions with academic and other outside scientific groups that add to our knowledge base and to our armamentarium of potential therapeutic approaches."

Inspiration/Vision "To use the explosion in understanding of the biology of human pathogens to define critical steps in infection pathogenesis amenable to therapeutic intervention and to use that knowledge to make a difference in patients' lives."