Education:
- Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada
Appointment(s):
- Associate Professor of Pharmacognosy
- Research Associate Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Interests:
Dr. Steven’s research program focuses on using natural product biosynthetic pathways to uncover unknown areas of chemical diversity and discover potential therapeutics. Natural products remain an exemplary source for therapeutics. In 2014, 25% of approved small-molecule drugs were natural products or derived from natural products. The group envisions our contribution to modern pharmacognosy as a multidisciplinary area of research that encompasses advanced microbiology to culture and cultivate non-typical bacteria, molecular biology to extract and exploit biosynthetic pathways from bacterial genomes, biochemistry to isolate and investigate enzymes from discovered biosynthetic pathways, and chemistry to appreciate and access the amazing chemical diversity supplied by Nature. In particular his group has a specific interest in natural products from “uncultivable” or “difficult” bacteria, as these are a yet untapped reservoir of new bioactive natural products. Students participating in this group will develop a diverse skill set and become independent researchers capable of working with bacterial natural products from genomic characterization to isolated molecule.
Publications:
- Granatosky E.A., DiPrimio N., Pickering J.R.E., Stevens D.C., Perlstein E.O., Taylor R.E. Draft Genome Sequence of GEX1A, a Polyketide from Streptomyces chromofuscus, Corrects the Cellular Defects Associated with Niemann-Pick Type C1 in Human Fibroblasts. Journal of natural products. 2018; 81(9):2018-2025.
- Albataineh H., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Marine Myxobacteria: A Few Good Halophiles. Marine drugs. 2018; 16(6).
- Adaikpoh B.I., Dowd S.E., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Archangium sp. Strain Cb G35. Genome announcements. 2017; 5(8).
- Akbar S., Dowd S.E., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Cystobacter ferrugineus Strain Cbfe23. Genome announcements. 2017; 5(6).
- Stevens D.C.*, Wagner D.T.*, Manion H.R., Alexander B.K., & Keatinge-Clay A.T. 2016 Methyltransferases excised from trans-AT polyketide synthases operate on N-acetylcysteamine-bound substrates. J Antibiot (Tokyo).
- Wagner D.T.*, Stevens D.C.*, Mehaffey M.R., Taylor R.E., Brodbelt J.S., & Keatinge-Clay A.T. 2016 α-Methylation follows condensation in the gephyronic acid modular polyketide synthase. Chem Commun (Camb). 52(57), 8822-5. *Co-first authors
- Stevens D.C., Young J., Carmichael R., Tan J., & Taylor R.E. 2014 Draft Genome Sequence of Gephyronic Acid Producer Cystobacter violaceus Strain Cb vi76. Genome Announc. 2(6), pii: e01299-14.
- Young J., Stevens D.C., Carmichael R., Tan J., Rachid S., Boddy C.N., Müller R., & Taylor R.E. 2013 Elucidation of Gephyronic Acid Biosynthetic Pathway Revealed Unexpected SAM Dependent Methylations. J. Nat. Prod. 76(12), 2269-76.
- Stevens D.C., Hari T.P.A. & Boddy C.N. 2013 The role of transcription in heterologous expression of polyketides in bacterial hosts. Nat. Prod. Rep. 30, 1391-1411.
- Stevens D.C., Conway K., Pearce N., Villegas-Peñaranda L.R., Garza A., & Boddy C.N. 2013 Alternative sigma factor over-expression enables heterologous expression of a type II polyketide biosynthetic pathway in Escherichia coli. PLoS ONE 8: e64858.
- Stevens D.C., Henry M.R., Murphy K.A. & Boddy C.N. 2010 Heterologous expression of the oxytetracycline biosynthetic pathway in Myxococcus xanthus. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 76, 2681-2684.