Expanding nature's chemical repertoire through metabolic engineering and biocatalysis.

Dr Ben Shen is a Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular Therapeutics and the Director of the Natural Products Library Initiative at the Scripps Research Institute. Before joining Scripps Florida, Dr Shen was a faculty member in the School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001–2010) and in the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis (1995–2001). His research interests include the chemistry, biochemistry, and genetics of natural product biosynthesis in actinomycetes, natural product discovery from underexplored microorganisms, and natural product-based anticancer and antiinfective drug discovery.