Plants produce hundreds of thousands of distinct small-molecule natural products, many of which are valuable nutrients, commodity products, and therapeutics. At the heart of the beautiful Okanagan Valley, the Plant Bioactive Compounds Research (PlantBioCoRe) group, led by Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang, integrates biochemistry, chemistry, bioinformatics, and molecular genetics to elucidate and engineer the biosynthesis of valuable small molecules from medicinal plants. Our ultimate aim is to learn from and translate natural metabolism into innovative biotechnologies to meet the ever-increasing demand for high-value chemicals.
Our current projects involve discovering biosynthetic enzymes and pathways, generating structural and functional diversity in alkaloids, and reconstituting natural product metabolism in synthetic biology chassis.