Christian Harding is relentless. His almost five-year-old daughter, Liv, knows her dad is a scientist. As he explains to her: “I am a microbiologist and we study things that are so small you can’t see them with your eyes. Some microbes are good and some are bad. I work to prevent the bad microbes from causing harm or disease to you.”
But that is only half his story. Christian is also an entrepreneur, though he doesn’t like the term. Rather, he considers himself relentless as he passionately focuses on vaccines to prevent bacterial diseases, especially those impacting our most vulnerable populations.
“Aside from clean water, there has not been a greater medical intervention that has saved more lives,” he says. His claim is backed by the World Health Organization. According to a recent report, “Global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives – or the equivalent of 6 lives every minute of every year – over the past 50 years. The vast majority of lives saved – 101 million – were those of infants.”
In 2016 Christian founded Omniose (formerly known as VaxNewMo) based on pioneering efforts with collaborator Mario Feldman. Omniose focuses on conjugant vaccines to prevent bacterial diseases using a proprietary process. The innovative platform streamlines manufacturing and promises a better immune response.
While his work is on the cusp of some major scalable discoveries, his journey to arrive here is rooted in brilliance wrapped in naivete.
When he graduated from a liberal arts college in 2009 with a degree in biochemistry, the country was in the middle of the great recession and there were no jobs. He stayed at his college and worked setting up organic chemistry labs as a stock room manager. Christian knew he wanted to pursue more education and ultimately chose graduate school over medical school.
He entered a PhD program at Ohio State University in bio-medical sciences. Christian rotated through cardiovascular, neurodegeneration, epigenetics and microbiology labs, still undecided about which direction to take his career. He ultimately joined the microbiology lab because he had heard that if you are going to spend five years with these people, you better like them. “I liked them.”
It was a productive time for Christian. He collaborated with Mario Feldman a professor from the University of Alberta in Edmonton Canada. Their collaboration led to the pioneering glycoconjugation discoveries that characterized a new class of conjugating enzymes.
As luck would have it, Mario had accepted a position at Washington University and invited Christian to join him. Within two weeks of graduation, Christian and his wife moved to St. Louis.
“I pursued a postdoc because I thought I wanted to be a professor: ivory tower, wear a white coat, open up a lab, do all that stuff.” He quickly realized that was not what he wanted to be.
After all those years of not knowing, it suddenly became crystal clear to Christian. He went into Mario’s office and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I would like to open a company. We had this bioconjugation technology just sitting on a shelf.”
“Mario was so supportive. We literally went around asking people for help. Not money, just help. We were looking for guidance. Ultimately, they got connected to BioGenerator the investment arm of BioSTL, which serves as a national model for transforming ideas into investable bioscience startups and has become one of America's most active early-stage biotech investors. BioGenerator saw the potential and encouraged Christian to apply for a federal grant that is specifically awarded to small businesses. The deadlines were short and requirements to apply were long, but with the coaching of BioGenerator the start-up received its first money in 2017.
That was the signal to Christian to dig in deep. He was the sole employee for the first 4 years, working out of a repurposed utility janitor closet. “I had no windows, no sink, no running water, but it was free and there was a bench.”
Fast forward, to today. Omnoise has been awarded $11.8 million in grants. His state-of-the-art research arm is located in BioGenerator Labs. He now employs 19 colleagues in quality jobs to make vaccines and analytically characterize them. In January 2024, the company announced an exclusive collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca for up to three years to research potential vaccines for bacterial pathogens.
Liv knows her dad is a scientist. As she grows up, she will come to learn how his relentless efforts bring innovation for good.
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