Swarts Lab

Research & Facilities

Research description

Overview of research

Mycobacteria include various important human pathogens, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the caustative agent of tuberculosis. These organisms feature a complex and distinctive cell envelope, which is rich in glycans and lipids that have critical functions, and thus represent promising targets for tuberculosis diagnostic and therapeutic development. We develop chemical tools to study and target these molecules, primarily focusing on glycolipids present in the cell envelope's distinctive outer membrane (the mycomembrane). Investigating such molecules for biological inquiry and therapeutic intervention is challenging using traditional genetic techniques, but chemical approaches offer a powerful alternative.

Research areas

Our long-term goal is to gain a better understanding of cell envelope composition, dynamics, and function. In addition, it is our hope that some of the tools developed in our lab will have be valuable for tuberculosis diagnostic and therapeutic development. We pursue these goals through various projects:

- Chemical and chemoenzymatic synthesis of bacterial sugars, lipids, and their analogues
- Chemical probes for imaging and detection of mycobacteria
- Chemical proteomics tools to discover and characterize cell envelope proteins
- Novel therapeutic strategies targeting mycobacterial cell envelope components

Laboratory & facilities

Our labs are located in CMU's Biosciences Building (2016) and Dow Science Complex (1991). Biosciences is an interdepartmental building housing biochemistry faculty from CMU's Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, as well as faculty from the Department of Biology, the School of Engineering & Technology, and the College of Medicine. Consisting mainly of research laboratories, the Biosciences Building has open-concept labs with segregated student desks, support rooms for shared equipment, core facilities for confocal & electron microscopy and flow cytometry, and specialty labs for synthetic chemistry and work with radioisotopes and pathogenic organisms.

We also utilize the facilities in Dow Science Complex, which has standard and active learning classrooms and introductory and advanced-level teaching laboratories, as well as 20 faculty research laboratories, each permitting undergraduate and graduate students to carry out faculty-mentored chemistry research. Support laboratories for research instrumentation and services are also located in Dow, including for NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (GC-MS, and high-resolution ESI-MS and MS/MS), chromatography, and radioactive materials research.

Biosciences Building

Synthesis lab

Biocontainment lab

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