Wilfred van der Donk presents “How to find our future antibiotics?” on Friday, April 30th, 2021, at 4:30 PM.
Historically, natural products have been the most fruitful source for the development of antibiotics. But since the late 1990s most pharmaceutical companies have closed their natural product discovery groups. The void has thus far not been filled with other classes of therapeutics, leading to a real danger of running out of antibiotics to ward off growing resistance amongst human bacterial pathogens. At the same time, the genome sequencing efforts in the 21st century have led a different strategy called genome mining for new natural products. As a bonus, this approach offers insights into Nature’s biosynthetic pathways, which often contain impressive chemical transformations catalyzed by enzymes that employ remarkable control over chemical reactivity and selectivity. This presentation will provide examples of genome mining for new natural products as well as impressive enzymatic reactions in the context of a rapidly growing class of natural products, the ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) (1).
References
- Montalbán-López M, et al. (2021) New developments in RiPP discovery, enzymology and engineering. Nat. Prod. Rep. 138(1):130 – 239.
Join Zoom Meeting https://carleton.zoom.us/j/97062621266
Meeting ID: 970 6262 1266 Passcode: 945583
Would you like cookies* and tea (or hot chocolate packets) to snack on during the Chemistry Seminar? On Friday, stop by the Mohrig Lounge-2nd floor Anderson between 3:30-4:30. Alison Block will be there to greet you or you may need to wait for her. If you don’t know where the Mohrig Lounge is, it is the study space on the southeast corner of 2nd floor Anderson, bordered on the south by the offices of Deborah, Dani and Lanhao.
*gf, vegan, nut-free options available