Bailey Group

Microbial metabolism results in a wealth of molecular diversity, much of which is used to discover novel therapeutics.  We aim to use modern synthetic biology approaches to create new molecular scaffolds that can be applied towards developing new therapeutics as well as biomanufacturing applications.

Microbial metabolism results in a wealth of molecular diversity, much of which is used to discover novel therapeutics.  We aim to use modern synthetic biology approaches to create new molecular scaffolds that can be applied towards developing new therapeutics as well as biomanufacturing applications.

Cell free expression is a valuable way to circumvent bottlenecks that are introduced via lengthy genetic procedures. Efforts to further optimise and develop these systems include optimising for specific classes of natural products (e.g. polyketides or non-ribosomal peptides) or new host machineries.  We are particularly interested in developing cell free systems for natural product production in Streptomyces and Myxobacteria.  This has applications in high throughput bioengineering, e.g. screening constructs in collaboration with computational scientists employing machine learning.

Heterologous expression is a powerful tool for accessing engineered pathways as well as pathways that are cryptic—or not produced under standard culture conditions.  Efforts in our lab aim to improve heterologous expression of natural products—both through developing better expression tools and through engineering new pathways.

We seek to characterise the enzymes in biosynthetic pathways.  Our biggest focus is on the so called “megasynthase” enzymes, which are type I polyketide synthases and non-ribosomal peptide synthetases.  These are complex, multidomain enzymes that have “colinear” biosynthetic pathways where in the molecular structure of metabolites correlates to sequence, enabling the ability to “genome mine” new natural products and recombine biosynthetic elements via protein chimeras.  Additionally, we characterise enzymes that are mechanistically novel or distinct.

Currently, the lab is split between Sydney and Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

We are always interested in welcoming enthusiastic, talented individuals with diverse backgrounds and skill sets to join our team. Our research is extremely interdisciplinary a variety of backgrounds including (but not limited to) organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, and bioengineering are desired!

For information about other opportunities to work or collaborate with us please email constance.bailey@sydney.edu.au with the following information:

1. A brief explanation of your interest in the group
2. Your CV
3. Potential funding sources you can apply for (if you are an HDR student or postdoc)

We are always happy to support students' and postdoctoral researchers’ scholarships or fellowship applications.