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A tall native plant of the North American prairie, switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum ) has long been a … plan to begin to link the plant’s varying traits — height, biomass, hardiness to cold, etc. — to its genes. The …

… of mine. I met him when we worked together at the late great Warp Drive Bio, a biotech startup where we did genome … from there as we go forward. And Marc’s quickly built up a great body of work, with interesting perspectives on … for antibiotics and the microbes that make them is in the soil. There’s … uh… there’s an issue there though, in that …

Cooperative Biodiversity Groups, and it’s this great program funded by the National Institutes of Health … it was an amazing program. DAN:  Yeah, a lot of really great academics came out of that too. ROGER:  Many academics … natural products science as a field, we have arguably been studying microbial natural products in an ordered way for …

… what was this bacterium, and why did your group want to study it? Marnix Medema: You mean the PhD project that I … Two fanatic PhD students. Alison Takemura: It sounds great. Yeah, it sounds like it was really needed at that … the action of the microbiome because if you sterilize the soil, the protective effect is gone. You can transplant the …

… agent properties. And on the one hand, it was really great training and I learned a lot. But oftentimes, it would … I had a two body problem, and it was a really great opportunity to get a training in natural products and … or online catalog, I guess. So we've also been able to get soils from Purdue campus itself and been able to actually …

… now?  MARCY: Sure. So my lab has really converged on the study of host-microbe chemistry. And the interactions– As … one of the best things that we do is work with this really great group of biologists that know what they’re doing much … interested in studying natural products?  MARCY: That is a great question because my path has been what I would call …

… secrete a lot more things than people do…? Although I don’t study people so maybe I’m wrong. But yeah, I mean, because I … we’re all here together. ALISON: How beautiful. What a great partnership.  DAN: Yeah, I guess so. You know, it’s … products because they’re easy to find. They grow in the soil. These are the same guys that produce geosmin. And so …

… be hearing about microbiology and natural products from the Great Salt Lake, and you’re going to learn, like me, what a … in natural products as an undergrad. So for me, it was studying sort of the interface of chemistry and biology … audience about those? JACLYN WINTER: Sure. I’ve had some great mentors along the journey. And so I started my PhD in …

… to explore the vast and diverse world of microbes. Studying bacteria and archaea, including those associated … addressing key environmental challenges, such as improving soil health, carbon sequestration and bioeconomy … are also used for micro-eukaryotes, in particular to study inter-organismal interactions. Novel approaches are …

… of challenges that usually lead to surprises and really great discoveries! And Eric’s done an awesome job, in that … . We also talked about Eric’s mentor, the late great John Faulkner, and Eric told us a story about how John … crack this case, then that would open up our field to other study. And so it was kind of an early example, to try to …

But most people that know me call me Kate. Dan Udwary: Great. So we’ve got Kate here today, and we wanted to talk … review and to have you on to talk about that. Kate Duncan: Great, I’m super excited! Lots of my favorite areas there, … I wouldn’t say I was one of these people that wants to study oceanography and was fascinated by the oceans, though …

… scientists who also do genome mining. We’ve got a great, fun bunch of little shows lined up, and I’m really … like, and then you could characterize it. The classical study that demonstrated this is Challis et al, Chemistry and … disparate environments. There’s some marine. There’s some soil samples. There’s human gut samples. There’s lots and …