Chambers C. Hughes

Chambers C. Hughes is a Research Group Leader in the Department of Microbial Bioactive Compounds at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Previously, he held positions as an Assistant Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (2012–2019) and a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. William Fenical (2005–2012). His research focuses on microbial natural product discovery, synthesis, and chemical biology, particularly employing reactivity-guided isolation and bioactivity-guided approaches to uncover novel bioactive compounds. His group has pioneered methods using chemoselective probes to target metabolites with specific functional groups, enabling the discovery of siderophores, antibiotics, and other secondary metabolites.

Education:

• B.S. in Biochemistry, Geneseo College (1999)
• Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley (2004)

Research Interests: The Hughes Group explores microbial natural products using cutting-edge techniques like NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. They focus on marine and terrestrial organisms, emphasizing the development of chemical labeling strategies to identify electrophilic compounds (e.g., epoxides, β-lactams) and conjugated alkenes. Their work bridges synthetic chemistry and biological activity, targeting antibiotic discovery, enzyme inhibition, and metabolic pathway elucidation.

Notable Contributions: The group has characterized marinopyrroles (protonophoric antibiotics), kasichelins (siderophores), and vatiamides (polyketide natural products). Their methods have revealed artifacts in previously reported natural products and enabled genome-mining approaches to de-orphan biosynthetic gene clusters.

Students & Collaborations: Current students include Shu-Ning Xia, Sehee Jang, Luca Salvi, and Max Knab. Collaborations span microbiology, synthetic chemistry, and bioinformatics, with key partners at the University of Tübingen and Scripps Oceanography.

Labs & Facilities: The Hughes Research Group operates within the Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine, leveraging advanced analytical tools for natural product characterization and synthesis.