Wyatt McDonnell

Wyatt McDonnell graduated from TCAPS in 2011. After graduation, Wyatt attended Hillsdale College, where he earned his BSc with honors in 2015. He then went directly to grad school at Vanderbilt University/Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he earned his MSc in Immunology in 2018 and his PhD in Computational Immunology in 2019. He is now the Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Infinimmune, a biotechnology company utilizing natural immunity to transform natural antibodies into safer and more effective drugs for complex diseases.

Wyatt and his co-founders started Infinimmune after discovering a new lens through which to view human B cells and their antibodies. Previously, Wyatt worked on world-class single cell technologies at 10x Genomics where he was the Technical Lead and Developer of Barcode-Enabled Antigen Mapping (BEAM). Wyatt also developed 10x Genomics’ first therapeutic antibodies and core immunology intellectual property behind three commercial products to interrogate the immune repertoire. As a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Wyatt studied the human immune correlates of chronic viral infection and type 2 diabetes using single cell technology and computational approaches and received Young Investigator awards from CROI, the International Workshop on HIV and Aging, and the American Heart Association. He received his PhD and Masters also at Vanderbilt University for his work on the roles of T and B cells in HIV infection, checkpoint inhibitor toxicity, and other immune-mediated diseases. He has co-authored 31 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Nature, Cell, and Nature Medicine, and 19 published patents in relation to immunobiology, genomics, and disease. He has been invited to speak at conferences including PEGS, the Keystone Symposia, the World Vaccine Congress, and PMWC.

When asked how his TCAPS education has helped him, he said, "TCAPS gave me opportunities to explore many different interests and subjects, and even the ability to widen my perspective in college by coming in with transfer credits thanks to dual enrollment at Northwestern Michigan College. I think TCAPS educators are unbelievably talented and run outstanding programs in both the sciences and the humanities/arts."

He went on to say it's difficult to choose one person who had the greatest impact on him, because there were so many influential educators from primary to secondary. Chronologically, he's particularly grateful for Vicky Wade (1st grade, Westwoods), Gail Ericson (2nd grade, Westwoods), Peggy Bramer (3rd and 7th grade), Lynn Mattern (4th grade), Jaye Lynn Trapp (5th grade), Rachel Noller (8th grade), Marek Ulicny (10th grade), Margaret Goeman (11th grade), Maria Chargo (11th grade), Jessie Houghton (11th grade), Flournoy Humphreys (7th-9th grades), Pat Brumbaugh (10th-12th grades), David Husser (9th-12th grades), and Phil Johnson (7th-12th grades).

Since leaving TCAPS, Wyatt says he is most proud of starting and leading a venture capital-backed biotechnology company (Infinimmune). Along the way, he's also enjoyed researching and publishing academic journals, completing his PhD, and going from 0 to 1 generating patents/intellectual property in biotechnology and antibody therapeutics.

When asked what advice he has for current students, Wyatt said, "The jobs you'll have as an adult may not exist today. Focus on learning generalizable skills, try things outside of your comfort zone, and look for opportunities to combine things you like and seemingly unrelated disciplines. If you're going to college, be sure to think carefully and actively about where your degree will take you *after* college. There are many schools of thought on this, ranging from "you should only pursue a computer science or engineering degree if you want to be financially stable" to "you should spend your time in college learning what you love and what you want to work on for the next 5-10 years." As with many things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The earlier you can learn that the world (and people) isn't black and white, the better."

Wyatt currently lives in Walnut Creek, CA and can be found playing piano, reading, or exploring the Bay Area culinary scene in his free time.