Evolving Nature’s Medicines in the Laboratory
A synthetic biology platform to discover, diversify, and evolve complex natural molecules, both small molecules and macromolecules, for safer and more effective therapies, including antibiotics and vaccines.
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Credit: Celine Wang
Discovery & Biosynthesis of Complex Natural Products
Mining, reconstructing, and engineering biosynthetic pathways to access structurally complex natural molecules in microbial hosts.
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Molecular Diversification & Laboratory Evolution
Engineering and evolving enzymes and pathways to generate new-to-nature molecules with improved activity, selectivity, and stability.
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Next-Generation Therapeutics & Vaccines
Microbial and cell-based platforms for producing and optimizing glycosylated drugs, antibiotics, adjuvants, and vaccine antigens.

Natural glycoside biosynthesis
Biosynthesis of terpene-based glycosides in engineered microbes

Glycodiversification of natural products
Directed evolution of glycosyl-transferases towards diversification
with non-native sugars and sugar sequences

Automated glycan synthesis
An automated platform for the enzymatic synthesis of designer glycan sequences as a general tool for glycobiology research