Timothy Wencewicz

Timothy Wencewicz is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Director of Graduate Studies in Chemistry at Washington University. He holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and a BS from Southeast Missouri State University. His interdisciplinary research focuses on antibiotic drug discovery, natural product biosynthesis, mechanism-based enzyme inhibitors, and targeted drug delivery across bacterial membranes.

Research Interests: Dr. Wencewicz leads a lab merging organic chemistry, enzymology, molecular biology, and microbiology. Key areas include developing new antibacterial scaffolds against drug-resistant pathogens, elucidating biosynthetic pathways of natural products like Tabtoxin, designing mechanism-based enzyme inhibitors (e.g., Tabtoxinine-β-Lactam for Glutamine Synthetase inhibition), and engineering natural drug delivery systems (e.g., sideromycins) for microbe-triggered antibiotic release.

Labs/Teams: His laboratory emphasizes translational research, leveraging natural product complexity to address urgent antibiotic resistance challenges. Collaborations span synthetic chemistry, enzymology, and microbiological studies to advance therapeutic strategies.