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.