People of ASP

My scientific interests focus on chemically exploring and genetically exploiting microbial natural products, primarily as drug leads and environmental toxins. We employ a multidisciplinary approach connecting genes to molecules, and over the years we have developed numerous genome mining techniques that are now standard in the biosynthetic community. We have established biosynthetic pathways to numerous microbial compounds, including the potent oncology agents salinosporamide A and didemnin B, the promising antibiotics taromycin A and napyradiomycin, and natural environmental toxins domoic acid and polybrominated diphenyl ethers. I have been a PI on NIH-funded grants since 2000 and was the founding Director of the NIEHS/NSF-sponsored Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health (2012-18). The Moore laboratory at UCSD-SIO presently consists of 5 undergraduate students, 6 graduate PhD students, 8 postdocs, and 2 visiting scientists from chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology backgrounds to create a stimulating and diverse work group able to successfully spearhead multidisciplinary research projects and programs. As of July 2020, I have published over 215 manuscripts, which, according to Google Scholar, have been cited nearly 19,000 times, with an h-index of 75. During my independent career at UW, UA and UCSD, as of July 2020, 16 graduate students (3 MS and 14 PhD) and 46 postdocs completed their formal training in my laboratory. The majority of my postdoc trainees have since transitioned to faculty positions (27/46 to date), including Joern Piel (Humboldt fellow 1998-99; Professor at ETH-Zurich), Christian Hertweck (Humboldt fellow 1999-01; Professor at HKI-Jena), Alessandra Eustaquio (LSRF fellow 2006-10; Asst Professor at UI-Chicago), Amy Lane (NIH fellow 2008-10; Assoc Professor at University of North Florida), Kaity Ryan (LSRF fellow 2008-10; Assoc Professor at University of British Columbia), Avena Ross (NSERC fellow 2013-15; Asst Professor at Queens University), Vinayak Agarwal (HHWF fellow & NIH K99 grantee 2012-17; Asst Professor at Georgia Tech), and Shaun McKinnie (NSERC fellow 2016-19; Asst Professor at UC Santa Cruz). All of my PhD students started postdocs upon leaving my laboratory, including Jackie Winter and Roland Kersten who are Assistant Professors at the University of Utah and University of Michigan, respectively. My group members have been awarded T32 traineeships (6), F31 predoctoral fellowships (3), F32 postdoctoral fellowships (4), IRACDA postdoc fellowships (1), and K99 awards (1) from the NIH. My laboratory has also trained numerous high school and undergraduate students, many of whom who have co-authored manuscripts, such as Lauren Gulland from Mira Mesa High School (Ross, Gulland et al, ACS Syn Biol, 2015) and Bailey Bonet from UCSD (Bonet et al, JNP, 2015).