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The overarching area of our research is drug discovery and development by using natural product compounds and enzymes. Our research lies at the interface of chemistry and biology and lab members get hands-on experience on different equipment including HPLC, NMR, HR-MS, FPLC, microplate readers, thermocyclers, and incubators. There are two main active projects in our lab:
I-Drug Discovery; Microbial Natural Products as Drug-Leads. Soil bacteria have provided 
many pharmacologically useful compounds including antibiotics such as tetracycline, erythromycin, kanamycin, neomycin and vancomycin; antiparasites such as avermectins; immunosuppressants such as rapamycin; antifungals such as amphotericin B; and anticancer drugs such as doxorubicin. We process soil samples collected from unexplored environments to cultivate bacteria that synthesize bioactive natural products. Members in this project merge multiple disciplines such as natural products chemistry, microbiology and biological screening.
II-Drug Development; Drug Modification Using Biocatalysts. Enzymes are nature’s catalysts to catalyze chemical reactions. We utilize this reaction to perform difficult-to-achieve chemical reactions. Enzymes are overproduced in heterologous hosts, purified and in some cases engineered to enhance drugs activities and properties. Members in this project merge multiple disciplines such as enzyme purification, protein engineering, biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and biological screening.
III-Virtual Docking and Screening of Disease Targets. Virtual screening is becoming popular in drug discovery and used to narrow down the number of compounds that should be experimentally tested. Our lab uses computational tools to predict potential activity of natural products. Members in this project merge computational and biological screening.
