Director of Science and Operations
Micromyx
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
Chris Pillar received a B.A. with a major in Biology in 1996 from Kalamazoo College, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Wayne State University in 2001 where he studied the contribution of toxins and proteases to the pathogenesis of Pseudomonas keratitis. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Gilmore at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center and Harvard University Schepens Eye Research Institute, studying toxin expression and regulation in Enterococcus faecalis. Dr. Pillar began his career in industry in 2007 at Eurofins Medinet where he served as Senior Scientist for five years under Dr. Daniel Sahm. In 2011, he joined Micromyx, LLC as Chief Scientific Officer and continued on as Director of Science and Operations when Microbiologics acquired Micromyx in 2019. In his time as both Senior Scientist at a global CRO, as the CSO at Micromyx, and currently as the Director of Science and Operations at Microbiologics, his primary responsibilities have been to: serve as the scientific lead on projects involving the testing and development of new antimicrobials for clients (pharmaceutical companies and biotech), manage the day to day operations of a group of scientists assigned to conduct these projects, generate final study reports, present study findings at international conferences and to standards committees (e.g. CLSI), and consult clients on development of anti-infectives (testing for IND/NDA submissions).