Biodiverse animals are intrinsically important, and yet biodiversity is in crisis. Beyond their intrinsic worth, animals are rich sources of drug-like chemicals and useful enzymes that have been extensively applied to human health and disease. Our lab focuses on biochemical pathways from diverse animals and their microbiomes. The following represent some of our major research themes:

A. Biosynthesis

1. The microbiome. Animals live in a happy symbiotic association with microbes, which often produce chemicals that help the animals to survive. Some of these compounds are pharmaceuticals. We study unique symbiotic interactions, focusing on microbial genes and proteins that make important chemicals in nature.
2. Animal genomes. The biosynthesis of most animal natural products is completely unknown, representing a new frontier of biochemical diversity. We have developed approaches to unveil these challenging and previously hidden biochemical pathways.
3. Diversity-driven biosynthesis and synthetic biology. Integrating the information obtained from the above areas, we have designed permissive biosynthetic systems to enable next generation synthetic biology. Some of these tools are widely used in diverse applications. Dr. Schmidt has also applied some of the early methods to co-found synthetic biology companies.

B. Drug Discovery

1. Ecology-driven drug discovery. Natural products made by animals and their microbiomes have an ecological purpose. A driving principle of our work is to link ecology to drug discovery, for example by tracing symbiotic bacterial interactions that lead to antibiotics, or by describing interactions between animals that impact neurons.
2. Neuroactivity and pain. Natural products impacting animal interactions and ecology are often useful leads for treating chronic pain and other difficult neurological diseases.
3. Infectious diseases. We have lately focused on difficult bacterial infections, discovering compounds from symbiosis that target multidrug-resistant, lethal pathogens. Interdisciplinary research requires collaboration. We are grateful to our colleagues from many different labs who join us in the above pursuits.