Brian O. Bachmann

Fantastic: 44 new pyrrolobenzodiazepine's via an engineered single module reductase terminated NRPS system #natprod #secmet

This gives the George Gershwin song “Let’s call the Whole Thing Off” a whole new spin.

You like potato and I like potato
You like tomato and I like tomato
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto
Let's call the whole thing off

🧪

Honored to host Dr. Martin Burke (@chemistryIllinois) as keynote at the VICB Student Research Symposium! His talk, "Imagine a World Where Anyone Can Make Molecules," is inspiring the next generation of molecular makers.

@vanderbilt.edu @vubasicsciences.bsky.social

Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97

Tom Lehrer has passed. Gonna go listen to the Elements song. #Chemsky 🧪https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/arts/music/tom-lehrer-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk8.JZo-.HIM61gyvtT3V&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShar

Isolation of Verrucosins A–E from a Marine Verrucosispora sp. Reveals a Unifying Biosynthetic Hypothesis for Linear and Macrocyclic Polyketides As part of our long-standing program evaluating the biosynthetic complexity and biomedical potential of natural products from marine microbes, our attention was drawn to culture extracts from a Verruc...

“Splendid gift” from Verrucosipora 🧪
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

On the left, a picture of a Petri dish showing an amycalotopsis from which comes in the center, a cartoon dragon and under the dragon the molecules called Dracomycins, which are drawn in the shape of the dragon. On the right a petri dish showing a cartoon of zones of inhibition.

Dracomicins, Hybrid Oligosaccharide–Nonribosomal Peptide Antibiotics from Amycolatopsis Species

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

As a bio organic chemist and a dad, I approve.

Multiplexed cytometry for single cell chemical biology Flow cytometry has great potential for screening in translational research areas due to its deep quantification of cellular features, ability to colle…

We put together this protocol in part to encourage broader adoption of Multiplexed Activity Metabolomics, an engine for functional metabolomics of all types including specialized metabolite discovery.

We enjoy knowing if metabolite is active before isolating it, and so should you! #natprod

Quick Look: A) Much of it is a list of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, chemical feed stocks, and a number of very broad chemical classes (B). A broad list of construction materials. (C) materials used in consumer electronics: chips, plastics, glass, metals. etc.

a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on

Bluetorial: My NIH grant got funded; The money is in the bank

What happens behind the scenes with NIH fund transfers

Proud to stand up for science on the steps of the Tennessee state capital in Nashville! #standupforscience

Stand Up For Science TN (Nashville) was a success! Thanks to everyone who came out and @campbell4tn.bsky.social and @aftynbehn.bsky.social for coming out and adding their voices to the fight!

@standupforscience.bsky.social #standupforscience2025

Brian Bachmann: Visionary Chemist Charts Path to Personalized Treatment Podcast Episode · Quantum Potential · 02/27/2025 · 48m

It was a real pleasure to field such amazing questions from Vanderbilt Provost Cybele Raver about my favorite subjects: natural products and synthetic biology. #NatProd 🧪

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/q...

Context matters: assessing the impacts of genomic background and ecology on microbial biosynthetic gene cluster evolution | mSystems Microbial secondary metabolites are compounds produced by bacteria and fungi that are not required for their replication and unconditional survival (1, 2). While they are thus not expected to be unive...

Our minireview on BGC evolution being shaped by genomic & ecological context is now live on mSystems:

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

#secmet #MEvoSky

As a scientific communication platform, I feel Bluesky is infrastructurally the real deal, but it is not being used anything like old science twitter. If anything, it seems to be sputtering some in this regards. That said, I need to post more.

I serve on this SS. It is my most important act of service to my community. We have a fantastic SRO and everyone tries their best to do best by the science. My NHLBI R01 was reviewed here. I am so sad about this.

YouTube video by UW-Madison Department of Biochemistry Dr. Julian E. Davies, University of British Columbia

One of the kindest and most interesting scientists I have known, Julian Davies, passed away. I had some remarkable conversations with him. Watch this seminar, and you will see what I mean. RIP, Julian.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjdb...

Congrats! Very well deserved, Laura.

Activation of Primary C–H Bonds in Oxidative Cyclizations of Tambjamines Catalyzed by Rieske Oxygenases TamC and PtTamC Tambjamines are complex bipyrrole-containing natural products that possess promising bioactive properties. Although Pseudoalteromonas citrea is known to produce both cyclic tambjamine MYP1 and the linear precursor (YP1), the biosynthetic machinery used to catalyze the site-selective oxidative carbocyclization at the unactivated 1° carbon of YP1 has remained unclear. Here, we demonstrate that a three-component Rieske system consisting of an oxygenase (TamC) and two redox partner proteins is responsible for this unprecedented activity on YP1 and potentially, a non-native substrate (BE-18591). We also show that a homologous oxidase from Pseudoalteromonas tunicata (PtTamC) can function together with the partner proteins from P. citrea to process both YP1 and BE-18591. These reactions represent the first Rieske oxygenase-catalyzed activations of C–H bonds at 1° carbons, resulting in carbon–carbon bond formation. The use of TamC and PtTamC to potentially generate the new-to-nature cyclic analogue of BE-18591 suggests the enormous biocatalytic potential of these Rieske systems to facilitate late-stage oxidative cyclizations at terminal C(sp3)–H bonds.

So thrilled to have this story out in the world! Awesome work from Dr. Ramachandra, current grad student Josh Innis and Dr. Yu!!
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Copper-dependent halogenase catalyses unactivated C−H bond functionalization - Nature A halogenase enzyme uses the copper in its active site to catalyse iterative chlorinations on multiple unactivated carbon−hydrogen bonds, enabling carbon−hydrogen functionalization that is not achieva...

First post on Blue sky! Congratulations to graduate student Yorick Chiang and scientist Masa Ohashi on discovery of new copper dependent halogen from Nature @nature.com !
Many thanks to the wonderful collaborators!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Identification of a Biosynthetic Gene Cluster for the Production of the Blue-Green Pigment Xylindein by the Fungus Chlorociboria aeruginascens Xylindein is a blue-green pigment produced by the fungi Chlorociboria aeruginascens and Chlorociboria aeruginosa. Its stunning color and optoelectronic properties make xylindein valuable for textiles ...

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Integration of 168,000 samples reveals global patterns of the human gut microbiome The Human Microbiome Compendium is a unified database of publicly available human gut microbiome 16S samples, built with the integrated data from hundreds of independent projects. The compendium is us...

Today we report a new compendium of human gut microbiomes with >168,000 samples

By analyzing this massive dataset, we discovered distinct microbiome patterns across the globe, and show we can predict where a person lives just from their gut bacteria

Now out in Cell:

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Thanks Dr. Berg, for this first hand account. Academic publishing is variously fraught: economic model, publish or perish/impact factor obsession, rigor and reproducibility, decreasing public trust in science, etc. I feel for all stakeholders & it's helpful to get some "catbird seat" level light.

Microbial secondary metabolites: advancements to accelerate discovery towards application Nature Reviews Microbiology - In this Review, Dinglasan and colleagues explore innovations that facilitate rapid microbial secondary metabolite discovery, focusing on recent techniques for the...

Our new review article "Microbial secondary metabolites: advancements to accelerate discovery towards application" in Nature Reviews Microbiology is now published!

rdcu.be/d6BHX

Autologous DNA mobilization and multiplication expedite natural products discovery from bacteria The transmission of antibiotic-resistance genes, comprising mobilization and relocation events, orchestrates the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. Inspired by this evolutionarily successful p...

Interesting tool alert. The thing that makes this look promising is a way to "plasmidify" biosynthetic gene clusters in their native producers. Could simplify refactoring and expression in chassis strains. #secmet

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

WOW!!! Beautiful new Nature paper from Burkart Lab UCSD reveals how non-ribosomal peptide natural product synthetases work together.

They use tetrazine click chemistry to capture these huge protein complexes mid-reaction. 3 different snapshots show different states.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@joriegraham.bsky.social doing my best to let the poets know… 😉

GitHub - medema-group/BiG-SCAPE: Similarity networks of biosynthetic gene clusters Similarity networks of biosynthetic gene clusters. Contribute to medema-group/BiG-SCAPE development by creating an account on GitHub.

Happy to announce the beta release of #BiGSCAPE2!
This is the result of a great effort by Arjan Draisma, Catarina Loureiro and Nico Louwen, who worked tirelessly to improve the code from the ground up!
Also major kudos to @marnixmedema.bsky.social for his leadership 💪
github.com/medema-group...

This is a problem of how we conflate engineering and science. Students using LLMs to write is like building a robot to lift weights for you at the gym. The point of lifting the weights is for your training, not because weights need lifting