Ben Shen

Ben Shen is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida, holding a joint appointment as Professor in Molecular Therapeutics. His career spans prominent institutions including Scripps Research (Principal Investigator, NCI UW National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group, 2005-2010) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Charles M. Johnson Distinguished Chair, 2004-2010). He leads the SR-CHEM-SHEN LAB focused on natural product discovery and biosynthesis.

Shen's research centers on Natural Product Biosynthesis, Engineering, and Drug Discovery, specifically investigating microbial secondary metabolites through multidisciplinary approaches combining organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. His work addresses enzymatic mechanisms, pathway regulation, and leveraging microbial strain collections for drug discovery. Key focus areas include enediyne antibiotics, polyketide synthases, and genome mining technologies.

His publication trends reveal sustained leadership in

• Enediyne core biosynthesis (tiancimycins, platensimycins)
• Enzyme mechanism studies (methyltransferases, oxygenases)
• Biosynthetic engineering for antibiotic overproduction
• Natural product library development for high-throughput screening

with recent work emphasizing antibody-drug conjugates and sulfur incorporation in natural products.

Shen's scientific honors include:

• Fellow of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (2021)
• Charles Thom Award from the Society of Industrial Microbiology (2018)
• Promega Biotechnology Research Award (2015)
• Multiple NIH awards including Independent Scientist Award (2001-2006)

He has served as editor for Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (2017-2022) and Acta Microbiologica Sinica (2009-2022), and holds an ORCID of 0000-0002-9750-5982. His lab maintains a massive microbial strain collection (217,352 strains) supporting natural product discovery efforts.