In the Widhalm laboratory (@WidhalmLab), we use functional genomics approaches with synthetic biology tools to advance basic knowledge of plant metabolism. The goal of our research is to translate discoveries of new pathway genes and novel findings about pathway architecture and regulation to design metabolic engineering strategies for applications relevant to sustainable agriculture and toward improving human health. We are particularly interested in specialized plant quinones, compounds which have emerged as targets for developing novel natural product-based herbicides and novel therapeutic cancer drugs. In addition to gene discovery, we are working to understand the subcellular organization of specialized quinone pathways and their connections with primary metabolism.