Drug Discovery, Biosynthesis and Stereoselective Synthesis of Bioactive Natural Products

July 27 - 28, 2019

Chairs Michelle Goettge and Daniel C. Akwaboah

Proctor Academy

204 Main Street

Andover, NH, US

Venue and Travel Information

Conference Description

The Gordon Research Seminar on Natural Products and Bioactive Compounds is a unique forum for graduate students, post-docs, and other scientists with comparable levels of experience and education to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas.

This research seminar will highlight multi-disciplinary topics related to the chemistry and biology of natural products and bioactive compounds. We strongly encourage the submission of abstracts related to organic synthesis, methodology development, chemical biology, biosynthesis, synthetic biology, and biological activity.

This program will include pioneering student and post doc talks chosen from submitted abstracts, an influential keynote speaker, and a career breakout session with mentors from a variety of different career paths.

Related Meeting

This GRS will be held in conjunction with the "Natural Products and Bioactive Compounds" Gordon Research Conference (GRC). Those interested in attending both meetings must submit an application for the GRC in addition to an application for the GRS. Refer to the associated GRC program page for more information.

Conference Program

Saturday
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm	Arrival and Check-in
3:30 pm - 3:45 pm	Introductory Comments by GRC Site Staff / Welcome from the GRS Chair
3:45 pm - 4:30 pm	Keynote Session: Leveraging Structural Biology to Study Natural Product Biosynthesis Discussion Leader: Chunyu Wu (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
3:45 pm - 4:20 pm	Catherine Drennan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) "Snapshots of Metalloenzymes Involved in Natural Product Biosynthesis"
4:20 pm - 4:30 pm	Discussion
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm	Poster Session
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Exploiting Nature to Make Natural Product Derivatives / Preparation of Complex Bioactive Natural Products Discussion Leaders: Christopher Schwalen (Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, USA) and Matthew Anketell (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)
7:30 pm - 7:45 pm	Ankur Sarkar (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) "Microbial Synthesis and Evolution of Pharmaceutical Leads"
7:45 pm - 7:50 pm	Discussion
7:50 pm - 8:05 pm	Audrey Ynigez-Gutierrez (Vanderbilt University, USA) "New Methods for Biosynthetic Derivatization of Antimicrobial Orthosomycins to Engage a Unique Ribosomal Binding Site"
8:05 pm - 8:10 pm	Discussion
8:10 pm - 8:25 pm	Kelsey Morgan (Duke University, USA) "Investigation of Lipid II-Binding Antimicrobial Peptides"
8:25 pm - 8:30 pm	Discussion
8:30 pm - 8:45 pm	Philipp Sondermann (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) "Total Synthesis of Mytilipin B"
8:45 pm - 8:50 pm	Discussion
8:50 pm - 9:05 pm	Zhiyao Zhou (The University of Chicago, USA) "Asymmetric Synthesis of Caged Indolenine Alkaloids, Strictamine and Arborisidine"
9:05 pm - 9:10 pm	Discussion
9:10 pm - 9:25 pm	Vignesh Palani (University of California, Berkeley, USA) "Development of a Unified Strategy for the Synthesis of Delavatine A and Incarviatone A"
9:25 pm - 9:30 pm	Discussion
Sunday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
9:00 am - 11:00 am	Synthetic Efficiency via Computation and Catalyst Design / Tools for Characterizing Natural Products and Their Biosyntheses Discussion Leaders: Masha Elkin (Yale University, USA) and Marius Grote (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany)
9:00 am - 9:15 am	Kerry Betz (Stanford University, USA) "From the Construction of Valuable Azacycles to New Catalyst Design: Using Catalyst-Controlled C-H Amination to Access Nitrogen-Containing Small Molecules"
9:15 am - 9:20 am	Discussion
9:20 am - 9:35 am	Daria Kim (Yale University, USA) "Total Synthesis of Indoloditerpenoid Natural Products Enabled by Computational Augmentation of a Transform-Guided Retrosynthetic Strategy"
9:35 am - 9:40 am	Discussion
9:40 am - 9:55 am	Manish Walia (Temple University, USA) "Synthesis of (-)-Melodinine K: A Case Study in Efficiency"
9:55 am - 10:00 am	Discussion
10:00 am - 10:15 am	Seven Nazipi (Aarhus University, Denmark) "A Modified Isolation Chip for In Situ Cultivation and Isolation of Antimicrobial Drug-Producing Bacteria from Social Spider Nests"
10:15 am - 10:20 am	Discussion
10:20 am - 10:35 am	Seung Yeon Kim (Stanford University, USA) "Partial Promiscuity of Dirigent Proteins and Their Application for Lignan Analog Synthesis"
10:35 am - 10:40 am	Discussion
10:40 am - 10:55 am	Tony Davis (University of California, San Diego, USA) "Small Molecules to Probe Dynamic Protein-Protein Interactions in Fatty Acid and Polyketide Biosynthesis"
10:55 am - 11:00 am	Discussion
11:00 am - 12:30 pm	Poster Session Coffee will be served in the poster area from 11:00 am - 11:30 am
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm	Mentorship Component: Career Panel Discussion Leader: Jeffrey Henry (The University of Notre Dame, USA)
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm	Panel Discussion Careers in Natural Products Catherine Drennan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) David Gorin (Smith College, USA) Frank Petersen (Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Switzerland)
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm	Evaluation Period Fill in GRS Evaluation Forms
3:00 pm	Seminar Concludes