Programme

The programme for Directing Biosynthesis 2010 is as follows. A pdf version is available for download from this page.

Session 1: Discovery of New Natural Products and Pathways

The chemistry underlying bacterial symbioses
Jon Clardy
Harvard Medical School, USA

Oscillatoria PCC 6506 secondary metabolism: from genome sequencing to cyanotoxin biosynthesis
Annick Méjean, Stéphane Mann, Rabbia Mazmouz, Olivier Ploux*, Florence Hugon and Valérie Pichon
ENSCP, France

Biosynthesis of the polyketide antibiotic thiomarinol by marine bacteria
Daisuke Fukuda, Anthony Haines, Annabel Murphy, Zhongshu Song, Joanne Hothersall, Carl Ward, Elton Stephens, Russell Cox, John Crosby, Chris Willis, Thomas J. Simpson and Christopher M. Thomas*
University of Birmingham, UK

Genome mining of secondary metabolites and their biosynthesis pathways in Aspergillus nidulans
Clay C. C. Wang*, Nancy Keller and Berl Oakley
University of Southern California, USA

The rapamycin/FK506 biosynthetic enzymes RapK/FkbO are chorismatases required for starter unit synthesis
Steven Moss, Biotica, UK

Genome mining towards a comprehensive accounting of triterpenoid biosynthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana
Seiichi Matsuda
Rice University, USA

Session 2: Pathway Engineering

Engineering the Biosynthesis of Novel Lipopeptide Antibiotics Related to Daptomycin
Richard Baltz
Cubist, USA

Total-, Semi- and Mutasynthesis - three faces of one medal
Andreas Kirschning
University of Hannover, Germany

Genetic and Biochemical Analysis of Precursor Supply in Secondary Metabolite Biosynthesis
W. Wohlleben*, K. Laiple, Y. Mast, K. Schad, E. Schinko, E. Stegmann and T. Weber
Eberhard-Karls Universitat Tubingen, Germany

Challenges and Opportunities in Natural Product Glycosylation
Jon Thorson
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Modular Thinking - Explorations in Activity and Function
Michael Burkart (Winner of the 2010 OBC Lecture Award)
University of California, San Diego, USA

Session 3: Structural Biology and Directed Evolution

Peeling Back the Layers of Time: Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of Nature's Biosynthetic Toolbox
Joseph Noel
The Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics, USA

Deciphering interdomain communication in modular PKS
Kira Weissman
University of Saarland, Germany

Engineering Plant Polyketide Synthases
Ikuro Abe
The University of Tokyo, Japan

Convergent evolution of oxygen activation mechanisms in three different enzyme families of polyketide biosynthesis
Gunter Schneider
Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Reengineering the Nonribosomal Peptide Andrimid
Bradley S. Evans*, Yunqiu Chenc,  Huimin Zhaod and Neil L. Kelleherc
University of Illinois, Urbana, USA

Molecular Origami in Nature: The Cyclization Specificity of Polyketide Synthase
Sheryl Tsai
University of California, Irvine, USA

Session 4: Biosynthesis and Enzymology

Natural product biosynthesis - Inspiration for novel chemistry and enzymology
Ben Shen
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

The genetic and biochemical basis for napyradiomycin biosynthesis via V-dependent chloroperoxidases
Bradley Moore
University of California, San Diego, USA

Cytochrome P450-Catalysed Regiospecific Nitration of L-Tryptophan in thaxtomin biosynthesis
S. M. Barry* and G. L. Challis
University of Warwick, UK

Highly unusual iterative use of NRPS involved in the biosynthesis of saframycin
Kento Koketsu, Kenji Watanabe, Hiroki Oguri and Hideaki Oikawa*
Hokkaido University, Japan

Mechanistic studies of sesquiterpene synthases for an expansion of the terpenome
Juan A. Faraldos, Veronica Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Amang Li, David J. Miller, Fanglei Yu and Rudolf K. Allemann*
Cardiff University, UK

Leader Peptide Directed Biosynthesis: Engineering of Lantibiotics
Wilfred van der Donk
University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, USA

 

*Denotes presenting author to whom affiliation applies