Research
Elucidation of Natural Product Biosynthetic Pathways
Nature produces an extraordinary variety of small molecules, known as natural products, that have found applications in medicine, biotechnology, and chemical biology. Many of these compounds are made through complex biosynthetic pathways encoded within microbial, fungal, and plant genomes. Although modern DNA sequencing has revealed thousands of potential pathways, the functions of many of the genes and enzymes involved are still unknown. Our research focuses on understanding how organisms build these structurally complex molecules. Using techniques from bioinformatics, biochemistry, chemical biology, and synthetic organic chemistry, we identify the genes involved in natural product biosynthesisand determine how the corresponding enzymes work together to produce specific compounds. By studying these pathways, we aim to expand our understanding of the associated enzymes while also creating opportunities to engineer novel transformations with applications in the selective synthesis of bioactive small molecules.
Isolation and Identification of Biocatalysts with Novel Reactivity
Enzymes are nature’s catalysts, capable of carrying out complex chemical reactions with remarkable efficiency and selectivity. Compared to many traditional synthetic methods, biocatalytic reactions often proceed under milder conditions and can provide higher degrees of control, making biocatalysts powerful tools in chemical synthesis. Our research focuses on discovering and developing enzymes that perform useful and unusual chemical transformations, with the aim of identifying catalysts with reactivity that is difficult to achieve using conventional synthetic chemistry. We combine tools from synthetic organic chemistry, chemical biology, and biochemistry to understand how these biocatalysts function and how their reactivity can be applied to the preparation of valuable molecules.