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Darren Hansen
email:
dbhansen@newark.rutgers.edu
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Research Interests
Our research group is interested in understanding the biochemistry of secondary metabolite biosynthesis. To this end our group uses a combination of chemical and biological approaches to examine the following topics:To characterize the specific molecular interactions between bacteria in polymicrobial infections and communities: The leading cause of lung failure in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients is associated with a persistent Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia polymicrobial infection. Currently little is known about how these bacteria interact. Both bacteria are known to produce quinoline quorum sensing (QS) molecules. We plan to use a combination of enzymology and genetics screens to understand the role of QS between bacteria species and then apply genetic screens such as differential fluorescence induction and DNA microarrays to search for other example of bacterial crosstalk.
To characterize the regulation and function of cryptic secondary metabolites: The genomes of many bacteria have shown that a greater number of genes are allocated to the production of secondary metabolites then originally predicted: up to ten percent of a microbial genome can be annotated for secondary metabolite production. With the continued success of natural products as drugs and lead scaffolds, are we not missing the most obvious source of natural products? We plan to use a combination of bacterial and chemical genetics to probe the regulation and expression of previously uncharacterized secondary metabolite gene clusters.