New Antibiotics from Nature’s Inventory

Welcome to the Wencewicz Lab!

The Wencewicz Lab is part of the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis.  Established in July 2013, our main research focus is antibiotic drug discovery.  The Wencewicz Lab is a truly interdisciplinary research environment merging the fields of organic chemistry, enzymology, molecular biology, and microbiology. We utilize our knowledge of organic chemistry and enzyme function to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic action, biosynthesis, resistance, and delivery.  A strong bias is placed on studying antibiotics isolated from nature.  Much can be learned from these “Natural Products” whose molecular scaffolds evolved over billions of years to solve many of the puzzles behind effective antibiotics.  We aim to reveal Nature’s antibiotic secrets to open new frontiers in antibiotic discovery including promising new antibiotic targets, novel modes of action, unique enzymatic biosynthetic transformations, resistance mechanisms, and targeted drug delivery.

 

The Wencewicz lab is actively recruiting talented undergraduate researchers, graduate students, and post-doctoral scholars!

learn more about Professor Wencewicz

---