Kenji Watanabe, Ph.D.

Research Interest
Polyketide (PK) and nonribosomal peptide (NRP) natural products comprise some of the most structurally interesting and medicinally important molecules found in nature. We are studying some of the biosyntheses involved in the PK and NRP biosynthetic pathways, building on our past work as we investigate structures that are more complex and more useful as targets. These include de novo biosynthesis of natural products and their analogs. We are also examining the molecular recognition feature and substrate specificity of catalytic domains for the biosynthetic proteins. These studies serve as a foundation for engineering of hybrid PK synthases and hybrid NRP synthetases that can produce novel ?unnatural natural products?.

Biography
Dr. Kenji Watanabe received his B.A. (1996) and Ph.D. (2000) in biological chemistry from Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. His postdoctoral fellowships included a year at the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a two-year appointment at Stanford University studying in the departments of chemistry and chemical engineering. In 2003, Dr. Watanabe returned to Hokkaido University as an assistant in the agriculture department. In 2004, he joined the department of pharmaceutical sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy as a senior research associate. In 2006, he was promoted to research assistant professor (non-tenure track faculty) in the department of pharmaceutical sciences.

Dr. Watanabe has won several national awards in Japan, including the Young Scientist Research Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products (2006), Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry Research Award (2006), Synthetic Organic Chemistry (Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.) Research Award (2005), and Young Scientist Research Award in Natural Product Chemistry (2004).

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Selected Projects/Publications
Watanabe K,Wang CCC,Boddy CN,Cane DE,Khosla C. Understanding substrate specificity of polyketide synthase modules by generating hybrid multimodular synthases. J Biol Chem,278,42020-42026,2003.

Watanabe K,Rude MA,Walsh CT,Khosla C.Engineered biosynthesis of an ansamycin polyketide precursor in Escherichia coli. PNAS,100,9774-9778,2003.

Watanabe K, Hotta K, Praseuth AP, Koketsu K, Migita A, Boddy CN. Wang CCC, Oguri H, Oikawa H. Total biosynthesis of antitumor nonribosomal peptides in Escherichia coli. Nature Chemical Biology, in press.