Heterologous
expression of cryptic microbial biosynthetic pathways
The majority of the world's medicinally used compounds
are produced by natural sources, and many plants and microbes share
similar biochemical machinery to achieve these syntheses. With the recent
explosion in microbial genome sequencing, dozens of new and unique
pathways have been identified in bacterial DNA, though the chemical
products of these pathways have not been identified. We will aim to
develop new technology to modify, recode, and synthesize the DNA encoding
a novel pathway, thereby making it expressible in E. coli or other
suitable hosts. We will then look for the production of novel, perhaps
medicinally useful, natural product molecules by HPLC, LC-MS or other
routine chemical separation techniques. This project will require a
student eager to work at the biology-chemistry interface, and interested
in developing new methods in genomics and biochemistry.
