Ó³»´«Ã½-MIT Seminars in Chemical Biology: Wilfred van der Donk
Ó³»´«Ã½-MIT Seminars in Chemical Biology
February 10, 2025
MIT Stata Center
Speaker: Wilfred van der Donk, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Talk title: Genome Mining for New Natural Products
Description: The genome sequencing efforts of the past 20 years have revealed that ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) constitute a large class of peptide natural products. These molecules are produced in all three domains of life, their biosynthetic genes are ubiquitous in the currently sequenced genomes, and their structural diversity is vast. Furthermore, they are increasingly recognized for their involvement in fighting or causing human disease. This presentation will discuss the use of genome mining and synthetic biology for the discovery of new RiPPs that have proven to be an excellent platform for discovering unusual chemistry involved in their biosynthesi