Next meeting: Tues 19 November at 7.00pm
"Nature's silent pharmacy: the search for novel bioactive substances
in nature"
Dr Colin Lazarus of Bristol University
After
doing his BSc in Biology at the University of East Anglia, Dr Lazarus
moved to the University of Bristol for his PhD studying mitochondrial
biogenesis, He then did postdoctoral research studying molecular structure
and organization of fungal mitochondrial genomes at the Max Planck Institute
for Experimental Medicine, Göttingen, W. Germany and became Shell Research
Fellow studying molecular biology of plant hormone responses at the Plant
Breeding Institute, Cambridge UK
From 1984 to 2017 he was first Lecturer and then Reader in Plant Molecular Genetics at the University of Bristol studying and teaching plant and fungal molecular biology and biotechnology. Since 2017 he has been Honorary Research Collaborator at Bristol.
Throughout human history mankind has made use of available natural resources for food, clothing, shelter and medicine. In his talk, Dr Lazarus will describe the search for and development of, in modern times, medicines similarly been based on compounds that were first found to exist in nature, particularly in the form of specialized metabolites of bacteria and fungi. The characterization of these microorganisms in the laboratory environment has underpinned the discovery of a valuable yet limited array of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, including antibiotics, anti-cancer agents and fungicides. However, recent advances in DNA sequencing and bioinformatics have revealed that microbes have the potential to produce a much wider range of specialized metabolites than they have been observed to do. It is not known what properties such potential compounds would have but researchers expect some to demonstrate biological activities that could be the source of novel medicines or agrochemicals. In his talk Dr Lazarus will describe how attempts are being made to unlock the door to “nature’s secret pharmacy” to discover, among other things, urgently needed novel antibiotic