BIOSYNTHESIS OF COMPLEX MOLECULES

Microorganisms and plants synthesize a tremendous diversity of chemical compounds useful as drugs, materials and in food applications. The still largely unexplored structural and chemical diversity of natural products is unmatched by synthetic method and continues to be the most successful source for the discovery of novel scaffolds with important biological activities.

We are exploiting and investigating the selectivity and specificity of the biosynthetic machineries that make these complex compounds to create ways of synthesizing diverse natural products or their core scaffolds for further synthetic modification. Efforts in genome sequencing give us access to an incredible number of genes from microorganisms and more recently, from plants that can be in silico screened for new biosynthetic functions allowing tapping into the synthetic potential of microorganisms, and especially plants. To do so, we are fitting microbial cells with new biosynthetic abilities using metabolic and genetic pathway engineering strategies together with evolutionary and rational protein engineering strategies to alter and study biosynthetic activities.