Alyssa is the 2019 winner of the Sandra Morris and Richard Tillyer Scholarship in Chemistry.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Congratulations to Jay
Jay is the winner of the 2019 Brian and Jane James Graduate Scholarship in Catalysis Research
Convergent biosynthetic transformations to indolmycin
In a new paper in Nature Chemical Biology, we report that a convergent biosynthetic transformation leads to the bacterial specialized metabolite indolmycin in marine gram-negative Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea, when compared to a terrestrial gram-positive Streptomyces species.
Read about it here.
Congratulations to Yi-Ling, Mel, and Guiyun on this work!
An asymmetric reductase for acyclic imino acids
Acyclic imines are unstable in aqueous conditions, but acyclic imino acids can exhibit transient aqueous stability. Here we report the X-ray crystal structure and mechanism of Bsp5, an asymmetric acyclic imino acid reductase that intercepts acyclic imino acids produced by a partner oxidase and then converts them into D-amino acids. To read more, check out our recent paper in JACS!
In vitro reconstitution of azomycin biosynthesis
In this work reported in Angewandte Chemie, we reconstitute the biosynthetic pathway to the nitroimidazole antibiotic azomycin, revealing some interesting new enzymology. Congrats to Jay on this work!
Congratulations to Tina
Tina received a Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Jason Hedges
Jay received a 2019 UBC Chemistry Award for Graduate Research Excellence.
Congratulations, Jay!
Piperazic acid-containing natural products
Our new review article on piperazic acid-containing natural products is online at Natural Product Reports.
Check out all the exciting piperazic acid-containing molecules.
Congratulations to Kalindi!
Farewell to Jin
It was Jin’s last day, and we sent her off with a goodbye lunch. She is off to join Applied Biological Materials (ABM) in Richmond, BC where she will be doing some cool work in biotech.
Good luck, Jin! We will miss you!
A Two-Enzyme Pathway Links L-Arg to Nitric Oxide in N-Nitroso Biosynthesis
N-nitroso compounds are carcinogenic molecules previously thought to be made only through non-enzymatic routes. We investigated how the N-nitroso natural product streptozocin is constructed, and we revealed a new two-enzyme pathway that links L-arginine to production of nitric oxide. Congratulations to Hai-Yan and coauthors for their recent publication in JACS!