A professor’s encouragement helped Christian Seitz ’16 discover a passion for chemistry that ultimately led him to global vaccine research. Now working through the University of Chicago, Seitz studies viruses identified by the World Health Organization as potential pandemic threats in an effort to help prevent future global outbreaks.
Christian Seitz ’16 did not enroll at Elon University as a chemist but rather found this passion through a recommendation from Associate Professor of Chemistry Dan Wright, who recognized his connection and excellence in the subject.
“I wasn’t really interested in chemistry whatsoever when I enrolled. I was a lot more interested in sports. That’s really where my heart was at the time,” Seitz said.
Pursuing his current major in exercise science as a freshman, Seitz was enrolled in a required chemistry course when his professor called him to meet in his office.
“He wanted to have a one-on-one meeting, which, as a freshman only two months into college, was a little bit intimidating.”
Unsure of what his professor wanted to discuss, Seitz recalls, “He thought I had a lot of talent and potential in chemistry. He wanted me to take it seriously, and also to think about taking more chemistry classes that weren’t required, just to explore and see if I enjoyed it more than I thought I did.”
Having his potential recognized led him to take his professors’ advice. It was halfway through his second chemistry course that Seitz decided to change his major to chemistry.
“I got into chemistry with the broader goal of trying to help people in some way,” Seitz expressed.
During his time at Elon, he took full advantage of the opportunities presented to him. He studied abroad in Europe during Winter Term, conducted research through the Lumen Scholars program, completed two internships and immersed himself in service learning, where he taught children who were struggling to read.
Striving to gain experience in his field, Seitz dove right into his internship abroad. He attended RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, for the summer, contributing to their research efforts.
“This was my first real research experience, and it made me realize that I enjoy research so much that I’m still a researcher today,” he expressed.
The following fall, he started his research with the Lumen Scholars. Alongside his mentor, Sydney F. & Kathleen E. Jackson Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry Joel Karty, Seitz conducted a project that earned the 2014 Lumen Prize. Focused on expanding research on the reaction preferences of an enolate anion, in both gas and aqueous environments, he aimed to understand why it behaves differently in different environments, with the end goal of other scientists further optimizing the usage of this molecule when they need it.
Seitz’s passion for chemistry research continued the next summer when he was selected to participate in an internship at the California Institute of Technology. This further learning encouraged his eagerness to contribute to research.
“Going to Caltech, I was intimidated by being around so many geniuses. This internship was a good confidence-building exercise. It proved that even though I come from a small school with a tiny science program, I can fit in with these types of people and communicate and share ideas with them. That internship gave me the confidence to go to graduate school and then beyond,” he said.
Right after graduating from Elon, Seitz went to the University of California, San Diego, and completed his Ph.D. He then went to the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Lab to work on a project where researchers work with the World Health Organization to create a list of ten viral diseases with the greatest potential to cause a global pandemic.
The virus that would later mutate into COVID-19 was on this list, which became a global pandemic just a year later. Due to this, there was more interest from foreign governments to fund this type of work to make vaccines for the remaining viruses on the list and distribute them to prevent the next pandemic.
Joining this team in 2023, Seitz’s work is focused on two viruses: Lassa Fever, which affects people in West Africa, and the Nipah Virus, which affects a few countries in Southeast Asia. The Lassa Fever is very transmissible, but often non-lethal; Nipah is the opposite. Not many people get sick with Nipah; however, when they do, it is often lethal.
Both viruses are concerns for a possible pandemic and require preventative research to fully understand, for a vaccine to be created.
“Those countries in West Africa and Southeast Asia do not have the healthcare capabilities or biotechnology to develop these vaccines themselves,” he said. It’s private U.S. foundations and Western European governments that put money into this non-profit, which is funding my research through the University of Chicago to develop these vaccines. Once the vaccine is successfully developed, they will go to these countries and give them out for free.”
Connecting his current work back to his time at Elon, Seitz noticed that his ability to work with diverse groups of people and social connection skills that he strengthened at Elon served him in his current role. He notes, “Because I talk with different types of people who don’t have the experience that I have, I have to accurately communicate what I’m doing, why I need to do this, and so on. So that’s certainly something that helped quite a lot from Elon, being able to communicate what I’m doing.”
Seitz’s published chemistry research is available online; he hopes other chemists can read these manuscripts and learn something from them, and hopefully build off of that.
“I’m contributing to advancing science in small steps. Even though I’m doing more of the basic research of trying to find stuff, the overall goal is that people are going to use these to discover stuff that will directly help people,” he added.
Seitz hopes the future of his career holds opportunities to take up a leadership and mentor role for other chemists.
“I really enjoy mentoring and teaching people, I want to have my own research group where I have some people working below me so I can mentor them and help them advance science as well,” Seitz said.
In May, Seitz will be awarded the Top 10 Under 10 Award. This award is given to 10 Alumni from the past decade who have bettered their community and serve as alumni role models.