We are interested in working with the biological diversity of the northern forests of North Western Canada -Yukon Territories, British Columbia, and Alberta- to uncover the chemical potential of unknown bacterial natural products. From this biodiverse niche,  we seek to retrieve  unique chemical structures, natural product families of polyketide-nonribosomal peptides hybrids,  and natural products with antifungal activity. 

In order to do so, we make use of traditional organic chemistry techniques such as extraction ,chromatography, spectroscopy and synthesis to understand the structures and reactivity of these secondary metabolite natural products. We make use of various synthetic technologies to explore more sustainable production of natural product chemistry with use as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.  We also harness secondary metabolite bioinformatic tools to explore genetically  encoded bacterial natural product chemistry and their gene cluster families. 

Microbiology and molecular biology tools are utilized to isolate the bacteria from northern forest niches, particularly insects, and to identify the bacterial isolates. Bioinformatic tools are utilized to understand the genetic-encoding for the production of the complex natural product structures. We are particularly interested in the bacterial genera: Streptomyces, Burkeholderia and Bacillus; yet have a broad interest in all forest microbiome participants including fungi