Group Members


Dr. Chris Boddy cnboddy@syr.edu Assistant Professor C.V.	De novo biosynthesis of laulimalide Precursor directed biosynthesis of sialic acid analogs
Current Graduate Students
Steve Houghton srhought@syr.edu 4th year - PhD C.V. Website	Enhancing therapeutic glycoprotein production by using a resin- bound sialidase inhibitor to aid with retention of sialic acid during production in CHO cells. Cell culture of myxococcus xanthus extracts and LC-MS analysis of polyketides Mechanism of dihydropyran formation in laulimalide
Ben Lundgren brlundgr@syr.edu 4th year - PhD SB3 program C.V.	After winning the "World's Strongest Man" competition in 2002, I decided to trade in my barbells for test-tubes. My current research focuses on metabolically engineering Escherichia coli to overproduce a biologically important sugar called sialic acid. This biosynthetic route is cost-effective; and therefore, researchers that study sialic acid and its implications in the life sciences will benefit from this research.
Burk Wilke biwilke@syr.edu 3rd year-PhD C.V.	Enzymology of aromatic polyketides Chemoenzymatic total synthesis of neopeltolide
Meng Wang mwang@syr.edu 3rd year-PhD C.V.	Polyketide thioesterase mutagenesis and kinetics
Atahualpa Pinto atpinto@syr.edu 2nd year PhD C.V.	The biomimetic total synthesis of Spiculoic Acid A
D. Cole Stevens dcsteven@syr.edu 2nd year-PhD C.V.	Non-native production of secondary metabolites, purification of polyketides, waiting on myxococcus xanthus, annoying Meng Wang, staring at the LC-MS for endless hours		myxococcus xanthus
David Dixson ddixson@syr.edu 2nd year-PhD C.V.	I am working on developing a method of backbone cyclization of small peptides which is not sequence dependent. Our proposed method utilizes a thiol auxiliary which can undergo thioester exchange followed by S to N acyl transfer to form the new amide bond. Our auxiliary is then easily removed under normal acidic deprotecting conditions.
Visiting Scientists
Jack Melton meltonj@lemoyne.edu Visiting Scientist C.V.	I'm working on developing Halomicins and other potential drug candidates from the seminal body of work from the eminent microbiologist Dr. Marvin J. Weinstein.
Mike Henry mrhenry@syr.edu Grad 2006 - SU REU 2005 Poster C.V.	The focus of my research is to engineer a system using myxococus xanthus to identify and express polyketide synthase genes.
Undergraduates
Mariya Ryabushkina Sophomore - SU mryabush@syr.edu REU 2006 C.V.	Engineering of enzymatic domains for synthesis of new polyketides Synthesis of linear model systems for investigation dihydropyran verses oxetane formation
Joe Grim Senior at Univ. Wisconson-Green Bay grimjc18@uwgb.edu REU 2007 C.V.	I am working on the synthesis of substrates for the DEBS thioesterase catalyzed cyclization
Daniel Serrano Senior at Virginia Tech dsvolpe@vt.edu REU 2007 C.V.	I'm developing two recombinant proteins that exhibit thioesterase activity as part of the effort to synthesize spiculoic acid A and neopeltolide
Stefan Raffalt Senior at University of Technology Graz, Austria stefanraffalt@gmx.at iRes 2007	I'm working on the synthesis of derivatives of ManNAc for characterization of the substrate tolerance of the enzyme NeuB, an enzyme used in the biosynthesis of sialic acid.
Former Group Members
Sue Moon		smoon03@syr.edu		SU Grad 07'	Dental school NYU
Daniel Langevin		dclangev@syr.edu		Junior - SU
Kamesh Narasimhan		snaras01@syr.edu		Grad Student	C.V.
Krishna Sharma		kksharma@syr.edu		Grad Student
Soumen Kundu		sokundu@syr.edu		Grad Student
Zaara Sarwar		zsarwar@syr.edu		SB3	rotation 05'-06'
Evelyn Walenta		University of Technology Graz, Austria		REU 05'	REU 2005 Poster
Engin Arslancan		earslanc@syr.edu		M.S. - 05'
R. J. Mortali		rjmortal@syr.edu		SU Grad 07'
Laura Furst		lfurst@syr.edu Grad school Boston University		SU Grad 07'	Pfizer 2006 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship