The Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences

William H. Gerwick

Dr. William Gerwick has a joint appointment with the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, as Professor. He received his B.S. degree in Biochemistry at the University of California, Davis. His undergraduate Research was in Psychology. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Connecticut, School of Pharmacy.

Research:

• Discovery, isolation, structure elucidation, and biological characterization of new pharmaceuticals/agrochemicals from marine algae.
• Pathways of biosynthesis, architecture of biosynthetic genes, enzymology and mechanisms of formation of new marine natural products, especially cyanobacterial metabolites, utilizing contemporary methods in molecular biology
• Determination of the factors influencing natural products biosynthesis in marine plants and microalgae/bacteria through culture studies
• Identification of the natural function of secondary metabolites in marine flora and fauna
• Application of new methodology to the structure elucidation and biological characterization of marine natural products
• Discovery and characterization of new neurotoxins from marine cyanobacteria

Selected Publications

Simmons, T. L.; McPhail, K. L.; Ortega-Barria, E.; Gerwick, W.H. "Belamide A, a new cytotoxic tetrapeptide from a Panamanian marine cyanobacterium"Tetrahedron Lett. 2006, 47, 3387-3390.

Suyama, T. L.; Gerwick, W.H. Practical Total Syntheses of Epiquinamide Enantiomers, Organic Letters, 2006, 8, 4541-4543.

Gross, H.; Stockwell, V. O.; Henkels, M. D.; Nowak-Thompson, B.; Loper, J. E.; Gerwick, W.H. The Genomisotopic Approach: A Systematic Method to Isolate The Products Of Orphan Biosynthetic Gene Clusters, Chemistry and Biology 2007, 14, 53-63.

Linington, R.G.; González, J.; Ureña, L.-D.; Romero, L.I.; Ortega-Barría, E.;Gerwick, W.H. "Venturamides A and B: Antimalarial Constituents of the Panamanian Marine Cyanobacterium Oscillatoria sp."J. Nat. Prod. 2007, 70, 397-401

Gu, Liangcai; Geders, Todd W.; Wang, Bo; Gerwick, William H.; Hakansson, Kristina; Smith, Janet L.; Sherman, David H. GNAT-Like Strategy for Polyketide Chain Initiation. Science 2007, 318, 970-974.

Geders, Todd W.; Gu, Liangcai; Mowers, Jonathan C.; Liu, Haichuan; Gerwick, William H.; Hakansson, Kristina; Sherman, David H.; Smith, Janet L. Crystal Structure of the ECH2 Catalytic Domain of CurF from Lyngbya majuscula: Insights Into A Decarboxylase Involved In Polyketide Chain B-Branching. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2007, 282, 35954-35963.

Rashel V. Grindberg, Cynthia F. Shuman, Carla M. Sorrels, Josh Wingerd and William H. Gerwick, "Neurotoxic Alkaloids from Cyanobacteria", In "Modern Alkaloids, Structure, Isolation, Synthesis and Biology"E. Fattorusso and O. Taglialatela-Scafati, eds., Wiley-VCH Verlang GmbH & Co., Weinheim, 2008, pp. 139-170.

Simmons, T. L.; Gerwick, W.H. "Anticancer Drugs Of Marine Origin"in Oceans and Human Health, Risks and Remedies, P. Walsh, L. Fleming, H. Solo-Gabriele, and W.H. Gerwick, eds., Elsevier Press, 2008, pp 429-449.

W. Wrasidlo, A. Mielgo, V. Torres, S. Barbero, K. Stolenov, T. Suyama, W. Gerwick, D. Carson & D. G. Stupack "The marine lipopeptide Somocystinamide A triggers apoptosis via caspase 8," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, in press.

T. Luke Simmons, R. Cameron Coates, Benjamin R. Clark, Niclas Engene, David Gonzalez, Eduardo Esquenazi, Pieter C. Dorrestein and William H. Gerwick. "Biosynthetic Origin of Natural Products Isolated from Marine Microorganism-Invertebrate Assemblages," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, in press.

List of Publications in Pub Med