Our work on enzymology is driven by an interest in biochemical pathways and the complex reactions that enable natural product biosynthesis. Many of these reactions (stereo and regio selective inert C-H functionalisation, peptide cyclisation, selective halogenation) have no analogue from standard synthetic methodology. 

In the drive to make synthetic chemistry more sustainable we believe many of these enzymes have potential as biocatalysis and could provide solutions to reducing our reliance on heavy metal catalysis while also providing a range of new chemistries to exploit.

We work in collaboration with Dr. D. Castagnolo (UCL) on developing enzymes from fundamental investigation to application in biocatalysis.

Our work is driven by our fascination with the ability of microbes to produce highly complex specialised metabolites, many of which have important bioactivity.

Our investigations lead us in several directions including:

• Genome mining towards natural product discovery and isolation.

• Investigation and understanding of natural product biosynthetic pathways.

• Manipulation of biosynthetic pathways to produce novel derivatives.

• Mechanism of action of natural products.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health crisis, with resistance a particular problem in Gram negative organisms. In the 20th century most of our antibiotics have been produced successfuly by fermentation of a producing bacteria or fungus. However, developing derivatives of such molecules to avoid resistance is challenging requiring significant pathway engineering.

• We are interested in developing methods to develop derivatives of natural products using chemoenzymatic methods to identify new targets to enable focussed use of pathway engineering towards a defined target. 

• We hope to exploit natural products as tools to investigate fundamental biochemical processes and image pathogenic bacteria.