The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Sandra Loesgen graduated summa cum laude with a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Pharmacology from Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Germany, in 2007. She was DFG supported postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Bill Fenical’s Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD and her postdoctoral research continued in the lab of Dr. Carole Bewley at the National Institute of Health. From 2013-2019, she was Assistant Professor at Oregon State University. Since September 2019, she is Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, and part of the Chemistry Department at UF.
Email: sandra.loesgen@whitney.ufl.edu
The Loesgen Lab is focused on understanding the diversity and bioactivity of the chemicals produced by microorganisms, with an emphasis on compounds with medical applications. They employ a multi-disciplinary approach to isolate compounds produced by under-explored groups of microorganisms, and identify chemicals with anticancer, antibacterial, or antiviral activity.
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. Ongoing research examines the chemicals produced by other microbial strains, the chemistry of symbiosis within microbial communities, and the pharmacology of newly-identified compounds.
