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The biosynthesis of natural products continues to be a vitally important area of research in the search for new antibiotics, anticancer and antimalarial agents and other biologically active compounds. About 80% of clinically used compounds are natural product derived. The biochemical catalysts which orchestrate the creation of these complex compounds are of immense interest as they often carry out reactions which we cannot replicate synthetically with equivalent specificity and efficiency.

While the increase in available sequence data in recent years allows us to search for biosynthetic potential in the genomes of thousands of microbes, the challenge ahead lies in finding ways to unlock and exploit this potential.

Our research focuses on understanding and exploiting the natural product biosynthesis, from the conditions under which biosynthetic pathways are expressed to elucidating the mechanisms of the enzymes involved, in pursuit of novel compounds and biocatalysts.

Our approach is multi-disciplinary requiring organic synthesis, molecular biology and biochemistry as well as a range of analytical and spectroscopic methods.

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PhD Student

Projects

Purple molecule
Natural product assembly lines

Understanding the enzymology of natural product assembly lines particularly non-ribosomal peptide synthases

    Molecule model
    Natural product pathways

    Elucidating and manipulating natural product pathways

      DNA
      Novel enzymes

      Investigating the chemistry catalysed by novel enzymes identified by genome mining

        Publications

          People

          PhD Student

          Projects

          Purple molecule
          Natural product assembly lines

          Understanding the enzymology of natural product assembly lines particularly non-ribosomal peptide synthases

            Molecule model
            Natural product pathways

            Elucidating and manipulating natural product pathways

              DNA
              Novel enzymes

              Investigating the chemistry catalysed by novel enzymes identified by genome mining

                Publications

                  Group lead