Research

Nana works in Dr. Matthew Bertin’s Lab, whose research is focused on the isolation and structural characterization of marine natural products, algal toxic monitoring, and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Her main goal is to determine the abundance of Laurenobiolide, an active compound in the tulip tree when tested against MRSA. Nana is currently isolating more of the compound and testing it against other bacterial pathogens and microbes.

Nana’s MARC summer research experience (SRE) was conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Crawford at Yale University during the summer of 2022. The Crawford laboratory focuses on metabolism at the Human-Microbe Interface. Using a blend of small molecule chemistry, protein biochemistry, cell biology, and microbiology, the lab exploits the natural interactions between bacteria and animals to discover new molecules with signaling, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, and anticancer activities. Nana’s project was to discover bioactive metabolites from a human commensal bacterium Clostridium perfrimgens and Isolate them based on bioactivities and metabolomics then identify the chemical structure of the active metabolites by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS), etc.