Xiaohan Liu

Research activities

   Many specialized metabolites produced by bacteria have unique structures and biological functions. The search for novel bioactive bacterial compounds and the research of their biosynthesis are thus promising for developing new drugs.

   My thesis is related to non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS)-derived bacterial compounds in bacteria. The purpose of my research is to discover such metabolites with structural novelty using the genome mining strategy and to illustrate their biosynthesis. My work will therefore not only include the isolation, identification and exploration of new molecules, but also characterization of biosynthetic enzymes and genetic modification of biosynthetic pathways. To achieve these goals, knowledge and techniques from various domains will be applied, such as natural products chemistry, analytical chemistry, microbiology and protein biochemistry.