Nathan Schnarr

Nathan Schnarr serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he leads research on polyketide-derived natural products and polyketide synthase engineering.

His academic credentials include:

• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
• Ph.D., Colorado State University
• B.S., Hope College

Dr. Schnarr's research focuses on overcoming fundamental limitations in polyketide synthase (PKS) reprogramming, specifically addressing low turnover rates and high substrate specificity that hinder rational engineering of natural product analogs. His laboratory develops engineered biosynthetic systems to create miniature small-molecule factories through combinatorial exploitation of existing pathways. A parallel research thrust involves pioneering analytical techniques using "silent" chemical functionalities as binding handles for real-time monitoring of polyketide assembly intermediates and products. This dual approach aims to establish reliable genetic manipulation strategies for polyketide structural tailoring while simultaneously identifying bottlenecks in biosynthetic throughput.

His laboratory operations integrate chemical and biological methodologies to advance the field of natural product biosynthesis, with implications for pharmaceutical development and synthetic biology applications.