Dario Meluzzi:

Microorganisms synthesize a variety of relatively small organic molecules known as natural products or secondary metabolites. Although the true biological purpose of these molecules is not always well understood, many of them are found to be clinically useful as antibiotic, anticancer, and antiviral agents. Two classes of enzymatic complexes, known as Non-Ribosomal Peptide Synthetase (NRPS) and Polyketide Synthase (PKS), are often responsible for the biosynthesis of natural products. I am interested in elucidating the mechanisms and the end-products of as yet uncharacterized NRPS and PKS biosynthetic pathways. To this end, I used a variety of techniques, including molecular biology, biochemistry, chromatography, mass spectrometry, bioinformatics, and spectroscopy.