Constance Bailey

Dr. Constance Bailey is a Senior Lecturer and group leader in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. She holds affiliations with the Centre for Drug Discovery Innovation and the Sydney Nano Institute. Her research focuses on synthetic biology applications of polyketide synthases, cell-free protein synthesis, and metabolic engineering for natural product discovery. Bailey earned a B.A. from Reed College (2010), a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin (2015), and completed a NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2016-2018).

Research Interests
Her work integrates in vitro systems with microbial engineering to advance biosynthetic pathway design. Key areas include:
- Engineering polyketide synthases for targeted biofuel/chemical production
- Optimizing cell-free protein synthesis platforms for nonribosomal peptides
- Investigating metabolic crosstalk in prokaryotes
- Discovering novel antibiotics via actinomycete genomics

Grants & Awards
- 2024: SABA Program Funding
- 2023: Sydney ID Seed Grant for antibiotic discovery
- NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship (2016-2018)

Lab & Collaborations
Bailey's CBBaileyLab develops synthetic biology tools for sustainable chemical production. Her team collaborates with institutions like the Joint BioEnergy Institute and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.