The University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series returns for the fall on Thursday, September 12, 2024, at 6 p.m. with the program titled “A Journey Around the Globe –How Microbes Can Provide Drugs to Combat Diseases”. Dr. Sandra Loesgen, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory, will be the speaker.
This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture.
Register to watch online:
https://ufl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MRvl1XirSzaUeII3WIwFEw
Microorganisms provide a large amount of the current drugs. Especially among the antibiotics and anti-cancer treatments, over 65% of our clinical treatments were directly derived or inspired from microbes. In this lecture, Dr. Loesgen will give a background on microbial chemical warfare or the chemical language of microbes, illustrate their impact on human health, and connect to ongoing microbial explorations in the Loesgen Lab at Whitney (and many labs worldwide) with stories from microbes sampled worldwide. She will take you on a journey around the globe on our drug hunt. Our global microbiomes are an exquisite source for interesting and useful chemicals, we need to protect them.
Dr. Sandra Loesgen is focused on understanding the diversity and bioactivity of the chemicals produced by microorganisms. She employs a multi-disciplinary approach to isolate compounds produced by terrestrial and marine microbes to identify chemicals with functions in the microbiome and the ecosystem but also can serve as drug leads for medical applications.
Recent projects in the Loesgen lab have surveyed the chemicals produced by endophytic fungi and rare actinomycetes and have yielded several novel and highly active compounds with anti-cancer, antibacterial, and neuro-activity. Ongoing research examines the chemicals produced by microbial strains derived from various marine environments, the chemistry of inter-species symbioses, and the pharmacology of newly identified compounds.