lab azul
Microbial
Natural Products
Biotechnology
lab azul
Microbial
Natural Products
Biotechnology
The science of microbial molecules · In a collaborative laboratory · To advance natural product discovery
We investigate the chemistry of talented microbes, such as #cyanobacteria, as a source of natural products with potential use as pharmaceuticals.
Our research includes aspects of #naturalproductschemistry #pharmacognosy #chemicalbiology #biotechnology #pharmacology and #microbiology.
From antibiotic-resistant infections to untreatable cancers, new drugs are a continuous demand.
For an efficient drug discovery process, it is key to screen the most relevant chemical space. Natural products have long been recognized as an important source of therapeutic agents.
At the Lab Azul, we aim at enhancing drug discovery with biodiversity and technology.
___
Cyanobacteria are a taxonomically diverse phylum of microorganisms known to produce secondary metabolites with biotechnological potential. The chemistry of cyanobacteria from the Brazilian biodiversity remains largely underexplored, representing a promising source of unprecedented scaffolds. We are developing and screening a pre-fractionated library of cyanobacterial natural products for anticancer, antibiotic, and antiparasitic activities.
___
Omics technologies combined with information solutions have opened new frontiers in natural products research. We apply metabolomics and genomics for sample prioritization, preliminary dereplication, compound identification, large-scale comparative analyses, etc.