Brian Miglionico '04

The Young Alumnus Award recognizes the achievements of an alumnus who has graduated within the past twenty years. This year’s Young Alumnus of the Year honoree is Brian Miglionico, a member of the CHA class of 2004. Brian was a lifer at CHA, a star student, and member of the baseball team. 

After his time at CHA, Brian went on to study at Northeastern University. Brian, his lovely wife Nicole and their young son George now live in Boston.

Brian recently left his role at Acceleron Pharma after 9 years to join in launching a microbiome biotech, Finch Therapeutics, with the founding team in 2016. Since then, he has supported the growth of the company from 10 to 150 employees, through strategic partnerships and fundraising activities to drive a new class of therapies to patients. The microbiome field is in its infancy, however, it is gaining traction and focus from investors and large pharma alike. They (and many others) have been working to blaze a path in an otherwise uncharted therapeutic landscape and see broad application to modulate many unmet disease indications through the microbiome and gut bacteria.

Finch Therapeutics was an early pioneer of this technology, which is focused around FMT (fecal microbiota transplant). This approach has been shown to be very effective in treating ailments from bacterial infections of the gut to Ulcerative colitis, and even cancer. More and more applications and evidence come out every day about how the microbiome is connected to human health.