Robert O'Brien

Mentors Chaitan Khosla, Vijay Pande and Joseph Puglisi

Project Title Next Generation Antibiotics

Bio
I received a BA in Philosophy and History of Science from St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD and a BS in Chemistry from Seattle University. I conducted proteomics research at the Institute for Systems Biology with Dr. Bernd Wollscheid in Dr. Ruedi Aebersold’s lab, and organic methodology research at Seattle University with Prof. Peter J. Alaimo. I received my PhD from Boston College where I worked in Prof. Amir H. Hoveyda's lab, and there I developed new methods and catalysts for stereoselective olefin metathesis, and I applied Z-selective olefin metathesis to the total synthesis of biologically active natural products.

Lay Research Summary
My research at CMAD is being carried out under the guidance of Prof. Chaitan Khosla in collaboration with Mark Capece, Prof. Joseph Puglisi, and Prof. Vijay Pande. Our project aims to develop a next generation antibiotic derived from erythromycin, an antibiotic that has been clinically utilized for more than half a century. Due to the increased prevalence of antibiotic resistance, there is a constant need to develop new antibiotics, and previous work in the Khosla lab has allowed new versions of erythromycin to be produced. Our collaboration involves production of erythromycin analogs that will be used to study the mechanism by which erythromycin prevents bacteria from growing. My role is to produce new versions of erythromycin while Mark will then try to determine how effective these new antibiotics are and also determine how they function using tools developed in the Puglisi lab. As we gain insight into how these new drugs function, Prof. Vijay Pande’s lab will use computer modeling to help guide the design of more effective versions of the drug. The goal of our research is thus two-fold: understand how erythromycin works as an antibiotic and use that knowledge to design a more effective antibiotic that will overcome bacterial antibiotic resistance.