Neurite outgrowth enhancement by jiadifenolide: possible targets
A mechanistic link may exist between convulsant plant substances typified by picrotoxinin, and ‘neurotrophic’ sesquiterpenes like jiadifenolide.
Colibactin: understanding an elusive gut bacterial genotoxin
This highlight reviews recent studies of colibactin, a structurally uncharacterized genotoxin synthesized by members of the human gut microbiota.
Prospecting for new bacterial metabolites: a glossary of approaches for inducing, activating and upregulating the biosynthesis of bacterial cryptic or silent natural products
Over the centuries, microbial secondary metabolites have played a central role in the treatment of human diseases and have revolutionised the pharmaceutical industry.
The diazofluorene antitumor antibiotics : Structural elucidation, biosynthetic, synthetic, and chemical biological studies
The kinamycins and lomaiviticins are cytotoxic bacterial metabolites that possess a diazo substituent embedded in a highly oxidized carbocyclic framework (diazofluorene). This review summarizes their isolation, structural elucidation, and biosynthesis, synthetic studies in this area, and chemical biological investigations.
About this collection
This collection highlights winners of the Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship. This annual lectureship, established in 2010, recognizes an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to a natural products-related area of the chemical sciences in their early independent career..
The winner of 2019 Emerging Investigator Lectureship is : Mohammad R. “Mo” Seyedsayamdost Princeton University, USA.
2019 Winner Profile
Mo obtained an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University and completed his thesis in the laboratory of Prof. Lizbeth Hedstrom. He then joined the Department of Chemistry at MIT and earned a PhD degree under the guidance of Prof. JoAnne Stubbe. His PhD thesis investigated the mechanism of long-range radical transfer in class I ribonucleotide reductases. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the research groups of Prof. Jon Clardy and Prof. Roberto Kolter, where he examined the roles of natural products in mediating microbial interspecies interactions. In 2013, Mo started his independent career at Princeton University, where his lab is interested in the discovery, structure, function, and biosynthesis of natural products from microbial sources, with an emphasis on bioactive cryptic metabolites. These studies blend approaches from microbiology, bacterial genetics, natural product chemistry, and enzymology.
Winners of the Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship
2013 Rebecca Goss (University of St Andrews, UK)
2014 Emily Balskus (Harvard University, USA)
2015 Seth Herzon (Yale University, USA)
2016 Ryan Shenvi (The Scripps Research Institute, USA)
2017 Katherine S. Ryan (University of British Columbia, Canada)
2018 Konrad K. Tiefenbacher (University of Basel, Switzerland)