Congratulations to Loesgen Lab Ph.D. Student Grayce Dyer for being the recipient of the UF Chemistry 2026 Maurice Moore Summer Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded to a graduate student in the area of medicinal chemistry.
"I am grateful to have been selected as a Maurice Moore Summer Fellow. This fellowship will support me in dedicating the summer to advancing my research on bioactive natural products from aquatic bacteria. My work focuses on discovering novel cytotoxic and analgesic compounds from underexplored microbial sources by integrating genome mining, bioactivity-guided fractionation, and chemical analysis. This summer, I will prioritize the isolation and characterization of active metabolites from selected bacterial strains that show promising activity in cytotoxicity and zebrafish-based analgesic assays. By combining in silico prioritization with in vitro screening and chromatographic techniques, I aim to identify new compounds with potential applications in cancer therapeutics and pain management. This support will allow me to focus on these efforts and accelerate progress in my research. I am sincerely thankful for this opportunity." - Grayce Dyer