Masschelein Lab

Oral abstract submissions are open for Directing Biosynthesis VIII! Themes include
• genetics, enzymology & structural biology of natural product biosynthesis
• genome & microbiome mining
• synthetic biology & metabolic/microbiome engineering
• chemical ecology
• biocatalysis
....
👉 lnkd.in/eT_6rpBZ

... Dries De Ruysscher,
@hansgerstmans.bsky.social, Giel Vanreppelen, Laura-Lynn Huybrechts

Huge congratulations to Fatima El Arnouki Belhaji for her brilliant work on this, and thanks to everyone who helped
@marnixmedema.bsky.social, Mohammad Alanjary, @mmzdouc.bsky.social, Eveline Lescrinier, Angus Weir,
@scyphs.bsky.social, @patrickvandijk.bsky.social ...

Through genome mining and comparative bioinformatics and metabolomics, we illuminate how these triple hybrid systems expand Nature’s biosynthetic creativity. We also discovered the chitinimines, a new family of specialized lipid-containing natural products metabolites from Chitinimonas koreensis.

Charting the biosynthetic landscape of hybrid polyketide-nonribosomal peptide-specialized lipids Polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) synthase-like enzymes are best known for their role in membrane lipid biosynthesis in marine bacteria, but have also been repurposed for the assembly of specialized l...

Polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) synthase enzymes turn out to be far more versatile than we ever imagined! In our new preprint, we reveal a largely untapped biosynthetic space where they team up with PKSs and NRPSs to create new types of bioactive amphiphilic metabolites.
👉http://bit.ly/4hzUUak

Last chance to join the #Microbes25 party. Join us to explore how microbial cell factories, synthetic biology, and microbial engineering are rewriting the rulebook of applied #microbiology. Final registration is 23 Oct, grab your spot before it's gone:https://vibbio.tech/3KyHcIb
#VIBConf

CAGEcleaner: reducing genomic redundancy in gene cluster mining AbstractMotivation. Mining homologous biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) typically involves searching colocalised genes against large genomic databases. How

🚨 Tired of redundant #BiosyntheticGeneCluster hits?

💥 Check out #CAGEcleaner – our new genome-level dereplication pipeline for BGC mining and comparative analysis. Works with cblaster & CAGECAT.

Now out in Bioinformatics: bit.ly/3TghJEx
🔗 GitHub: bit.ly/44rNZK9
🙌 Kudos to our PhD student Lucas!

🥳 Huge congratulations to Prof. Joleen Masschelein (@masscheleinlab.bsky.social, @viblifesciences.bsky.social, @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social) for being awarded the 2025 EFMC Academia Prize!

The new #antiSMASH v8 paper is out in @narjournal.bsky.social! It was a pleasure helping to improve the detection of bacterial polyyne biosynthetic gene clusters. Happy mining! 🧬🔍

We are so happy to share that the 2nd Emerging Microbial Technologies conference will take place in Gent next 25th April 2025!!

This edition is jointly organized by CMET_UGENT and YBSMicrobiology
Follow us also on LinkedIn and X @EMT_conference

Thanks for the warm welcome!

🎄✨ Festive vibes at our annual lab Christmas dinner! Great food and lots of laughter to wrap up a wonderful year of science and teamwork. Here's to more discoveries and collaborations in the year ahead! 🧫🔬

Two weeks ago, we had the pleasure to welcome @nadineziemert.bsky.social as a guest speaker at our Microbes & Booze seminar. She gave a very inspiring talk on mining genomes for new antibiotics - thanks for your visit! 💊🍻