# Chemical Biology
# Chemical Biology
We focused on the discovery of microbial natural products
Our primary interest concerns the microbial natural products that are relevant to human health, this includes a fundamental understanding of their structures, biosynthesis, and biological activities. To further drive the research, we are closely collaborating with an Italian biotech company, NAICONS.
1) Natural products discovery
To discover microbial natural products that are relevant to human health, we use techniques such as mass spectrometry-based detection, chromatography-based isolation and NMR-based characterization. References: J. Nat. Prod. 2024; J. Nat. Prod. 2022; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021
2) Connecting chemistry back to genes
To better understanding how Nature makes natural products, we performed heterologous expression in Escherichia coli to elucidate their biosynthetic pathway. References: J. Nat. Prod. 2024
3) Evolution-inspired exploration
To perform genome mining for proteins encoding natural products, we use bioinformatic tools such as sequence similarity networks and phylogenetic trees to construct, visualize and analyze the protein sequences. References: Org. Lett. 2025; ACS Chem. Biol. 2025; RSC Chem. Biol. 2025
4) Enzymology
To study the enzyme's structure, substrate scope and mechanism, we use AlphaFold structure prediction, in vitro characterization and mutagenesis studies. References: RSC Chem. Biol. 2024; ACS Chem. Biol. 2024
# Story : Fork in the road
We made choices in our life -- hoping to make the right choice. But my case was like "wandering around and bump into a tree".
In my younger days, I was a gamer and top in my region. Without giving much thought about my undergraduate study, I took a programme and realized it isn’t fun for me. During my second year, out of curiosity -- I took an elective course far differed from the core degree program. It turned out that I had accidentally found a study I want to pursue as a career. This elective is Natural Products Chemistry -- mainly focus on discovering new chemical molecules from nature. The last stage of this study involved solving the chemical structure, which is like solving a puzzle cube.
After completed my PhD, an unexpected conference participation resulted a rare encounter that has brought me to oversea -- Australia, Japan and Singapore. Later, I realized how important my oversea experiences have added new features to my research direction, which opened the door for my next journey to northern Europe.
In short, I did not design my career path -- I simply following my interests. I believe there is an element of randomness in life -- sometimes wrong decisions can be a positive one -- so don't let happy accidents go to waste.
Chin-Soon Phan : "Thank you for visiting our group"
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