Vanessa Reyes Lopez

In the current day a prominent issue we see increasing is multi-drug resistant bacteria strain and it can impact anyone exposed. My research in the van der Donk groups focuses on the two classes of underexplored antibiotics, ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) and phosphonates. I wish to explore bioactive phosphonates and study the inhibition mechanism. For my RiPPs project, I will develop a new platform using Bacillus subtilis as the new host for the BGCs that were not successful in our FAST-RiPPs pipeline project. The discovery of new antibiotics and understanding their mode(s) of action offers the opportunity for drug discovery and uncovering the biological functions of these natural products.