WELCOME TO THE CHANDER LAB RESEARCH PAGE

Many bacteria produce biologically active compounds (such as antibiotics, chemotherapeutics, immunosuppressants) that are used in clinical and veterinary medicine.  These compounds cause toxicity by destroying cellular components or interfering with essential metabolic processes.  In fact, these same compounds should also be detrimental to the very bacteria that produce them, so how do producer organisms avoid self-destruction by the biologically active metabolites they produce?  My lab is investigating this problem in the remarkable soil bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor that produces several pigmented antibiotics (shown in the pictures).  We utilize microbiological, biochemical, molecular, and analytical chemistry tools in our studies.  You may read about some of our research findings in the publications section.  If this is an area of research that you think you might want to be involved in, please email me, and/or talk to students in my lab.