Scientists have discovered a new class of compounds in a disease-causing fungus, Aspergillus flavus, that the group says show potential as antileukemia drug candidates. cen.acs.org/biological-c... #chemsky 🧪

#broaderimpacts. Great afternoon working with UNCW MarineQuest high school students on antibiotic discovery from coral microbiomes @uncw-cms.bsky.social . Part of our most excellent collaboration with Blake Ushijima’ s group @vibriosoup.bsky.social .

Some good news for coral for a change! Exciting new research by one of my favorite collaborators! @vibriosoup.bsky.social 😁

If you are a PhD student in microbial interactions or natural products that is displaced by this political bullshit and looking for a new lab, I have room for one (or potentially two) PhD students in my group in the fall when I move to UW. Feel free to reach out via email.

Amazing!

A gene-editing treatment used on a 9½-month-old boy with a rare condition has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases #NBTNewsBeat www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...

Sometimes science looks glamorous - like heading out for field work in the Florida Keys - but most of the time it’s long days in lab and a few nights on an air mattress collecting overnight data points. Hats off to our awesome team of students and postdoc! #NSF #oceanscience @uncw-cms.bsky.social

I am thrilled to share after years of work/procrastination that the MassQL manuscript is finally published in @natmethods.nature.com - "A universal language for finding mass spectrometry data patterns". This was an team effort from all co-authors that helped shape MassQL and how it could be used.

Farewell DISCOvery group party for our visiting Brazilian PhD student Ana Capote. It’s been an awesome and productive 6 months. We’re going to miss her for sure!

So fun helping at the NC #STEM Expo @uncw-cms.bsky.social this weekend. Had an awesome crew from our DISCOvery lab and amazing volunteers talking about marine natural products and making “antibiotic producing bacterial cultures” out of jello and sprinkles 😀.

UNCW Represents at #ASLO2025 with a strong showing of departments, faculty, students and research. Biology & Marine Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Earth & Ocean Sciences, Physics & Physical Oceanography and Applied Coastal and Ocean Sciences, Ph.D! uncw.edu/academics/ma...

We had a great time at our first #ASLO25 ! Great to talk about our #NSF funded DOM cycling work, learn about amazing science, and for my awesome grad student Courtney Clevenger and postdoc Lydia Davis to meet some of the marine science community. Strong showing by @uncw-cms.bsky.social !

Last year we hosted an amazing PhD student, now Dr. Evelyn Assis de Andrade, from Brazil. Out of an 8-month stay in our group, she’s now published 4 papers!! including this most recent one on quality control for the Kalanchoe genus: analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

From samples to publication. Excited for my super talented @uncw-cms.bsky.social grad student Courtney’s first collaborative paper on toxic cyanobacterial blooms in urban storm water ponds. Great team! Out now in Harmful Algae: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Enjoying the wins when we can: Big day today @uncw celebrating accomplishments including the launch of our new PhD program in pharmaceutical chemistry. Over 150 attendees and over 50 students presenting research posters. Keynote speaker Dr. Chris Senanayake, CEO of TCG GreenChem. Such a great day!

We spent the first half of UNCW’s spring break @uncw-cms.bsky.social in the Florida Keys collecting sponges and algae for our DOM cycling experiments looking at a small slice of the future of ocean nutrition.

The Rising Impact of Coral Research at UNCW is highlighted by our Research & Innovation Department in this feature on the preservation and restoration of one of the world’s most vital marine organisms. @vibriosoup.bsky.social uncw.edu/news/researc...

In between the waves of devastating news, sometimes it’s nice to bask in the cleansing joy of a grad student’s first paper. Out today: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... Bulk of the work by @vibriosoup.bsky.social on new #coralprobiotics species. We just did the pigment analysis 😊.

If anyone knows an awesome marine chemist looking to make a change, my department at UNC Wilmington is hiring a distinguished (full) professor of marine chemistry ( broadly defined) . Related government/ industry equivalency will also be considered. Join us! jobs.uncw.edu/postings/34225

Spreading the gospel of “better living through chemistry “ #ACS today with my awesome students. Felt really good to get an injection of science enthusiasm.

For all my science friends who need a smile this week ❤️

American Bar Assoc 𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘞𝘦 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘸. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘸𝘺𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴, 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘺

This could be a really helpful resource:

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...

Unlocking hidden treasures: the evolution of high-throughput mass spectrometry in screening for cryptic natural products Brett Covington & Mohammad Seyedsayamdost @natprodreports.bsky.social pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Our new review article "Microbial secondary metabolites: advancements to accelerate discovery towards application" in Nature Reviews Microbiology is now published! rdcu.be/d6BHX

This is some really neat Friday afternoon reading. Bacteria are amazing!

The Keys research trip was a partial success. We’ll have to go back in March to wrap up this round but got several sponge specimens to bring back for lab experiments and lots of good planning and discussions.

Back at Mote Marine Lab in Summerland Key for our next round of coral reef DOM cycling experiments funded by #nsf. Hoping the calm seas and clear skies = great data!

Heading back to the Keys for field work this week. Stay tuned for more exciting science but for now - a giant glowing shrimp #PhoenixZoo #ZooLights

Looking for drug candidates in bacterial monocultures may not be as effective as looking in more diverse ecosystems. An antiviral compound was isolated from the metagenome of diverse aquatic microbial mats in Asia’s largest brackish lagoon. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Chemical diversity of #cyanobacteria natural products. doi.org/10.1039/D4NP...

She helped me make my organic chem slides last night… future scientist! 😀

Join an amazing team at my alma mater! Dream job.

It was a quick trip to Boca Raton but SO fun to catch up with my longtime friend Lyndon West, soak up some perfect weather. and share some of our research highlights with his department at #FAU 😀