Science Chat with Tom Backus
Tom Backus is an Associate and the Commercial Lead at Amplify, an early-stage translational investment fund of Mass General Brigham Innovation. He holds a Bachelor’s in Behavioral Neuroscience as well as an MBA from Northeastern University. Originally a bench scientist, Tom now helps investigators turn their discoveries into therapeutic products.
Interview conducted by Siobhan Keegan, representing Watershed Bio.
Siobhan: How did you become interested in science?
Tom: Growing up, I was always a science nerd. I was glued to the Discovery Channel and How It's Made from when I was seven or eight years old. Like a lot of people, I went into my college career thinking I wanted to be a doctor. As I got more experience in academic labs, I realized that my passion was more about the science behind medicine rather than clinical practice. I'm also a big sci-fi fan – I’m drawn to the idea of looking beyond what actually exists to see what could be.
Siobhan: Who inspired you early on?
Tom: I think it's those closest to us who have the biggest impact. I went to a big high school in suburban New York, so we had unique opportunities to take a few specialized classes. One was a biotechnology class taught by this engineer and researcher who had, later in his career, transitioned away from the bench and pharma in order to foster scientific curiosity in the next generation.
That class really taught me how expansive science is, how much it underpins everything we think about. Biotechnology spans everything from how we feed the world, to human and animal health, to even the way we get around. It reframed my perspective on what working in science could look like.
Siobhan: What are you working on now?
Tom: I work within Mass General Brigham as part of a translational fund called MGB Amplify. Every academic medical center or hospital-based research program has an innovation or tech transfer office dedicated to licensing and protecting intellectual property, and helping commercialize their scientists' discoveries. MGB takes that a step further by providing many resources to further this research. These include a venture capital fund that invests in spinout startups, as well as a number of translational investment opportunities, such as Amplify.
For many investigators, there is a persistent funding gap between publicly-available grants (such as NIH grants) and investments from VCs or large companies. Public grants are not designed to fund the development of products, and there is often more work that needs to be done to build a viable path for commercialization. Amplify exists to make sure that high potential research projects make it as far as they can internally, and hopefully make it to patients.
Siobhan: How did you transition from bench work to the commercial side of science?
Tom: I had the luck of being recruited into an early stage startup spun out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital called Keros Therapeutics. I took a leap of faith from the relative safety of big biotech into a pre-series A company where I was the third employee, and the first to do benchwork.
My day one was also the company’s, and I stayed until it went public a little over four years and 100 employees later. My desk was five feet away from the CEO, who is still a big part of my professional life. That entire experience was incredibly impactful for me. I found the startup environment to be electric and exciting. Most people who've had startup experience either catch the bug and don’t look back, or they never want to do it again. Needless to say, I got the bug.
I started thinking about how I could help startups as a career, which led me to business school and then management consulting. Both experiences were pivotal for me, but I always say that I learned more in my time in consulting than I did in my MBA. It’s really important to fill in those gaps between coursework and learn how to apply what you learn in real life.
Siobhan: How does your scientific background help you in your current work?
Tom: Having experienced both the academic and biotech side of things in labs (including within the MGB system) gives me a valuable perspective when I speak with PIs now. I know that there could be hundreds of hours of postdoc work behind that one graph we’re asking for, which makes me think a little bit more about what we really need. Plus, I get to pick the brains of some of the most brilliant minds in medicine on a daily basis. And since we’re all part of the same system, we don't have to worry about competing interests. We can connect as collaborators.
Siobhan: What have you learned from partaking in the research process from multiple angles?
Tom: I think that any scientist has an intellectual drive to understand the larger implications of what they’re doing in the lab, what will become of their data further down the line. At the bench, we often don't have visibility into that. But other people’s day-to-day lives revolve around these questions. Being able to be part of the full-circle process has been deeply satisfying: both generating the data, and then seeing how it pushes a development down the pipeline.
There are definitely days where I miss lab work, and feeling like I was more focused on “doing” rather than thinking and discussing, but they're all important pieces of the puzzle. There are so many more complexities involved in bringing treatments or diagnostics to patients than are immediately obvious on the surface. Sometimes I feel that we have a culture of letting things end at the publication of a paper. I like to think about whether we can take that a step further, and turn it into something that can ultimately benefit a patient.
Siobhan: What would you tell your younger self about the career journey ahead?
Tom: You'll likely never feel like you've "arrived" where you ought to be in a career. But I've found that to be a good thing. The desire to constantly learn, evolve, and adapt is what makes us good scientists, and what helps push the field forward. Embrace the uncertainty and the ongoing quest for knowledge and advancement. Take every opportunity to learn from those around you.
Siobhan: What advice would you give to others looking to pursue similar opportunities?
Tom: I'd say that step one is figuring out what you love, and step two is surrounding yourself with people who feel the same way about it. As an undergrad, joining student groups and clubs gave me opportunities to meet people who shared my intellectual curiosities, as well as people in different stages of their academic career that could teach me how to walk that path. For me, relying only on myself or trying to grow by sheer force of will is a really tough way to go at it. I prefer to create an environment where I’m passively able to absorb knowledge and improve because of those around me, not in spite of them.