Discovery through Engineering
Welcome to the Kalkreuter Lab! We are a highly multidisciplinary group that utilizes a combination of natural products chemistry, synthetic biology, protein engineering, enzymology, structural biology, bioinformatics, and microbiology to discover new chemistry and natural products. Natural products are often structurally complex and have specific biological targets and activities, leading to a major proportion of our clinical small molecule therapeutics.
Engineering Regulatory Networks for Natural Product Discovery​
Bacterial natural products are produced in response to a variety of internal and external stimuli, but in the lab, it is challenging to induce their production or overproduction. We utilize synthetic biology and protein engineering to rewire global regulatory networks to 'trick' the bacteria into producing the compounds we want. In addition to the translational applications of the natural products and their biosynthetic enzymes, this project aims to apply our findings to the fundamental understanding of regulators and their networks.