Natural Products Blog

HeeJu Nah receiving her poster prize certificate

We were pleased to present a prize at the 18th International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes to HeeJu Nah (Department of Biological Engineering, Inha University, Korea) for her poster on:

“Precise Cloning and Heterologous Expression of Natural Product Biosynthetic Gene Cluster Using Streptomyces Artificial Chromosome System.”

The symposium took place in Jeju, Korea on 23 – 27th May 2017.

The International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes is the premier conference in the field, covering all aspects from basic biology through to the applications of the metabolites these fascinating bacteria produce. The conference attracted 582 delegates, with speakers and sponsors from over 30 countries around the world, bringing together both well-established and promising scientists who were keen to discuss Actinobacteria. Actinomycetes are prolific producers of antibiotics and other bioactive natural products, including many compounds used in medicine and agriculture, such as erythromycin, rifampicin, amphotericin, doxorubicin, avermectin and spinosyn.

NPR Board members, Professor Greg Challis, Professor Yeo Joon Yoon and Dr Rebecca Goss were all in attendance at the meeting. Here is what they had to say about the meeting; The 18th meeting in the series featured many exciting talks on the discovery, biosynthesis and bioengineering of actinomycete natural products of direct relevance to readers of NPR. The conference programme included 13 symposia, 3 workshop sessions, 9 plenary lectures and a special lecture by 2015 Nobel Laureate Professor Satoshi Ōmura. Professor Ōmura overviewed the > 400 natural products that his group had isolated, with >20 being of clinical significance. This was particularly impressive, especially when one considers the NMR capability in the early days of his research. This was inspirational to young scientists and students in the field of natural products.

Excitingly, the symposium highlighted the huge acceleration in the field of natural product discovery, enabled by the availability of sequenced actinomycetes genomes, the development of tools for the identification of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoded within the genomes, prediction of their products, and the development of technologies enabling access to the products of these previously silent BGCs.

There was a strong strand of fundamental, developmental actinomycetes biology that ran throughout and underpinned the symposium. It is critical to the international community that research into this area remains vibrant and is well supported. Understanding the development and stability of these important antibiotic producers is crucial to optimising and sustaining them for the fermentative production of natural products.

Why not take a look at some related NPR articles here:

Antibiotics from Gram-negative bacteria: a comprehensive overview and selected biosynthetic highlights
J. Masschelein, M. Jenner and G. L. Challis
DOI: 10.1039/C7NP00010C

Opportunities for natural products in 21^st century antibiotic discovery
Gerard D. Wright
DOI: 10.1039/C7NP00019G

Symbiosis-inspired approaches to antibiotic discovery
Navid Adnani, Scott R. Rajski and Tim S. Bugni
DOI: 10.1039/C7NP00009J

This poster symposium for final year organic chemistry PhD students will take place at The Royal Society of Chemistry at Burlington House, in London, Monday 5 December 2016.

Abstract submission is now open!

The closing date for abstract submissions is Monday 3 October 2016. Get more information or submit an abstract now.

This symposium offers final year PhD students a chance to showcase their research to their peers, leading academics and industrial chemists. It is open to all branches of organic chemistry – in its broadest interpretation – and has a tradition of being the most competitive and highly-regarded organic chemistry symposium for PhD students in the UK and Ireland.

There will be a first prize of £500, two runner-up prizes, and a ‘selected by Industry’ prize. Industrial delegates will select this winner based on the potential for application in an industrial context.

We would like to thank F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd. and our industry sponsors for their generous support of this event.

Microbial protein targets: towards understanding and intervention

14–16 September 2016, Durham, UK

This symposium will bring together leading expertise in protein structure determination, biochemical characterization and chemical biology to explore the most recent advances in the understanding of protein function and inhibition in microbial pathogens – both bacteria and parasites.

An exciting line-up of speakers will present their recent work in the area. Some of the confirmed speakers are:

• Chris Abell University of Cambridge, UK
• Gerald Spaeth Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
• Ed Tate Imperial College London, UK
• Maria Marco-Martin GSK Tres Contos, Spain

Take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your work alongside leaders in the field and submit an abstract for an oral or poster presentation today. Through generous sponsorship from the RSC Chemical Biology Interface Division and the BSP there are bursaries available for early career researchers to support their participation at this meeting.

The oral abstract deadline has just been extended until 15 July 2016, and poster abstracts are welcome until 5 August 2016. For more information and to register please visit the conference webpage.

Join us on 22 April at the Society of Chemical Industry in London for Agri Innovation 2015: Emerging Technologies in Crop Research

This one-day meeting aims to provide an update on several areas of crop research, including identifying target proteins for crop protection ingredients, the synthesis of new crop protection agents and understanding the mechanisms of resistance and immunity in plants and insects. If you are working in organic synthesis, chemical biology or biochemistry in relation to crop science, this meeting will provide an opportunity to catch up on the latest developments. Speakers from academia and industry from across Europe will come together to present and discuss the latest developments in this area.

The meeting is jointly run by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical Industry Agrisciences Group and AGRI-net, the agriscience chemical biology network. For more details and to register, please visit the website.

A selection of conferences the journal will be attending in 2015.

The Natural Product Reports team will be attending a number of conferences in 2015 and we would be delighted to meet you there.

We’re also the team behind NPR’s sister journals OBC, MedChemComm, and Molecular BioSystems, so we’ll happily discuss your interdisciplinary research work. In fact, many of our authors choose to publish their research across all of these titles.

Spring

National symposium on Chemical Biology 18-19 February 2015, Mysore, India. Meet Deeksha Gupta.

Directing Biosynthesis IV 25 – 27th March 2015, Norwich, UK. Meet Marie Cote.

MedChemComm, 27-30 April 2015, Hyderabad, India. Meet Deeksha Gupta.

Grassmere Heterocyclic meeting 7th – 11th May, 2015, Grassmere, UK. Meet James Anson.

Summer

Royal Society of Chemistry Organic Chemistry Symposium Series 1st – 5th June 2015, Sendai, Tokyo, Kyoto, Japan. Meet Rich Kelly

American Peptide Symposium 20th – 25th June 2015, Orlando, Florida. Meet Rich Kelly.

ISMSC 28th June – 2nd July 2015, Strasbourg, France. Meet Marie Cote.

7th International Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry, July 5 – 8^th, Tokyo, Japan. Meet Hiromitsu Urakami.

ESOC 2015 12th – 16th July 2015, Lisbon, Portugal. Meet Marie Cote.

RSC Organic Synthesis 20th – 23rd July 2015, Cambridge, UK. Meet James Anson.

9^th CCS National Organic Chemistry conference, 31st July to 3rd August 2015, Changchun, China. Meet Guanqun Song.

9^th National Chemical Biology conference, August, Tianjin, China. Meet Guanqun Song.

250th ACS National Meeting & Exposition 16th – 20th August 2015, Boston, USA.

25^th International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry Conference (August 23-28) in Santa Barbara, USA. Meet Jennifer Lee.

Autumn

18th RSC/SCI medicinal chemistry conference 13th – 16th September 2015, Cambridge, UK. Meet James Anson.

26th Symposium on Physical Organic Chemistry, 24 – 26th September, Ehime, Japan. Meet Hiromitsu Urakami.

13th International Kyoto Conference on New Aspects of Organic Chemistry , 9th – 13th November, Kyoto, Japan. Meet Hiromitsu Urakami.

Tateshina Conference, 13th – 15th November, Tateshina, Japan. Meet Hiromitsu Urakami.

BMOS-16 15th – 19th November 2015, Buzios, Brazil. Meet Rich Kelly.

Winter

Pacifichem 15th – 20th December 2015, Hawaii, USA. Meet Marie Cote.

Let us know if you are planning on attending any of these meetings, as we would be happy to meet you there!