Natural Products Blog

The Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship recognises a researcher who has made a significant contribution to a natural products-related area of the chemical sciences in their early independent career.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Alison Narayan has been chosen by the Natural Product Reports Editorial Board to receive the 2020 Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship.

Her lab is interested in harnessing the powerful reactivity and selectivity of chemistry that exists in nature, to develop new tools and approaches for creating biologically interesting and beneficial molecules.

More about Alison…

Alison obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan before pursuing a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2012, she joined the Sherman lab at the University of Michigan as a postdoctoral research fellow and in 2015, Alison began her independent career at University of Michigan as an assistant professor.  Alison’s main research interest is identifiying enzymes from secondary metabolite pathways with potential synthetic utility and developing methods based on these biocatalysts to enable access to biologically active target molecules.

Mo receiving the NPR Emerging Investigator Lectureship

Earlier this year, Natural Product Reports was delighted to announce that Professor Mohammad R. “Mo” Seyedsayamdost was chosen by the Natural Product Reports Editorial Board to receive the 2019 Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship, which he has now been awarded at the recent ACS Orlando symposium.

The Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship recognises a researcher who has made a significant contribution to a natural products-related area of the chemical sciences in their early independent career.

“It is an honor and a privilege to receive the NPR Emerging Investigator Lectureship.

I am grateful to the selection committee, my mentors (Liz, JoAnne, Jon, and Roberto) for their constant support, as well as the members of my lab for their hard work.” – Prof. Mo Seyedsayamdost

More about Mo…

Mo obtained an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University and completed his thesis in the laboratory of Prof. Lizbeth Hedstrom. He then joined the Department of Chemistry at MIT and earned a PhD degree under the guidance of Prof. JoAnne Stubbe. His PhD thesis investigated the mechanism of long-range radical transfer in class I ribonucleotide reductases. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the research groups of Prof. Jon Clardy and Prof. Roberto Kolter, where he examined the roles of natural products in mediating microbial interspecies interactions. In 2013, Mo started his independent career at Princeton University, where his lab is interested in the discovery, structure, function, and biosynthesis of natural products from microbial sources, with an emphasis on bioactive cryptic metabolites. These studies blend approaches from microbiology, bacterial genetics, natural product chemistry, and enzymology.