Education:
- Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada
Appointment(s):
- Assistant Professor of Pharmacognosy
- Assistant Research Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Interests:
Ultimately our research questions and explores the utility provided by specialized metabolites to the producing organism. What do natural products do? The simplicity about this question belies its complexity. While the therapeutic activities of bacterial natural products have driven broad, activity-based discovery efforts, the benefits that the majority of secondary metabolites provide to producing bacteria have been obfuscated by their clinical applications and successes. Investigating the predatory capabilities of myxobacteria, we seek to determine the exchange of specialized metabolites amongst microbes during predation. Developing predator-prey pairings with ecologically relevant prey, we hope to learn how myxobacteria have evolved to combat bacterial behaviors pertinent to clinical concerns such as biofilm formation and persistence.
Publications:
- Granatosky E.A., DiPrimio N., Pickering J.R.E., Stevens D.C., Perlstein E.O., Taylor R.E. Draft Genome Sequence of GEX1A, a Polyketide from Streptomyces chromofuscus, Corrects the Cellular Defects Associated with Niemann-Pick Type C1 in Human Fibroblasts. Journal of natural products. 2018; 81(9):2018-2025.
- Albataineh H., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Marine Myxobacteria: A Few Good Halophiles. Marine drugs. 2018; 16(6).
- Adaikpoh B.I., Dowd S.E., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Archangium sp. Strain Cb G35. Genome announcements. 2017; 5(8).
- Akbar S., Dowd S.E., Stevens D.C. Draft Genome Sequence of Cystobacter ferrugineus Strain Cbfe23. Genome announcements. 2017; 5(6).
- Stevens D.C.*, Wagner D.T.*, Manion H.R., Alexander B.K., & Keatinge-Clay A.T. 2016 Methyltransferases excised from trans-AT polyketide synthases operate on N-acetylcysteamine-bound substrates. J Antibiot (Tokyo).
- Wagner D.T.*, Stevens D.C.*, Mehaffey M.R., Taylor R.E., Brodbelt J.S., & Keatinge-Clay A.T. 2016 α-Methylation follows condensation in the gephyronic acid modular polyketide synthase. Chem Commun (Camb). 52(57), 8822-5. *Co-first authors
- Stevens D.C., Young J., Carmichael R., Tan J., & Taylor R.E. 2014 Draft Genome Sequence of Gephyronic Acid Producer Cystobacter violaceus Strain Cb vi76. Genome Announc. 2(6), pii: e01299-14.
- Young J., Stevens D.C., Carmichael R., Tan J., Rachid S., Boddy C.N., Müller R., & Taylor R.E. 2013 Elucidation of Gephyronic Acid Biosynthetic Pathway Revealed Unexpected SAM Dependent Methylations. J. Nat. Prod. 76(12), 2269-76.
- Stevens D.C., Hari T.P.A. & Boddy C.N. 2013 The role of transcription in heterologous expression of polyketides in bacterial hosts. Nat. Prod. Rep. 30, 1391-1411.
- Stevens D.C., Conway K., Pearce N., Villegas-Peñaranda L.R., Garza A., & Boddy C.N. 2013 Alternative sigma factor over-expression enables heterologous expression of a type II polyketide biosynthetic pathway in Escherichia coli. PLoS ONE 8: e64858.
- Stevens D.C., Henry M.R., Murphy K.A. & Boddy C.N. 2010 Heterologous expression of the oxytetracycline biosynthetic pathway in Myxococcus xanthus. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 76, 2681-2684.