Brett Alcott

A biophysicist by training, Dr. Brett Alcott is uniquely positioned as a biopharma industry subject matter expert and brings with him a deep appreciation for the importance of basic research in understanding disease mechanisms and improving human health. Brett’s academic research focused on the protein-lipid interplay underlying the fusion of membrane-enveloped viruses, such as influenza, Ebola and HIV, with their host cells. His work sought to isolate and characterize the fusion pore – a transient lipidic connection between virus and host and a crucial early intermediate in the infection process – using an experimental approach which combined a novel, nanoscale in vitro electrical technique (capable of inferring pore size with millisecond resolution) and radically coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations.

Additionally, Brett developed a novel, robust single-cell fluorescence technique to report membrane fusion between cells expressing viral fusion proteins and bilayer nanodiscs of controllable size and chemical composition which could serve as a platform for future antiviral drug screens. A lifelong New Yorker, Brett holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from Cornell University, where he was a Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Columbia University (2017), where he was an NIH predoctoral fellow in Molecular Biophysics and an Exchange Scholar at Yale University.