Some Lerner Lab Members:

  • Doug Cababa
  • Ben Cravatt
  • Hicham Fenniri
  • Paula Foley
  • Kim Green
  • Terri Jones
  • Diane Kubitz
  • Richard Lerner
  • Tingyu Li
  • Larry Lo
  • Lee-Chiang Lo
  • Jonathan Rosenblum
  • Sally Pinz Sweeney
  • Diana Tishkevich
  • Irina Tishkevich The main emphasis in our lab is the rational design of new catalysts. Over the past ten years we have used the power of nature's combinatorial library--the immune response-- and our knowledge of mechanistic enzymology to generate a diverse array of new catalysts. Such catalysts have, in several cases, been shown to use very similar mechanisms to those which have evolved in natural enzymes. In addition, we have generated antibodies that are able to catalyze reactions which a) are not promoted by any known enzyme (eg Diels-Alder reaction) and b) which do not occur to a detectable degree without the antibody (eg Anti-Baldwin ring closure and Syn-elimination to a cis-olefin). As such, these new catalysts are of use for divergent reasons: to better understand natural enzymes by recapitulating important mechanisms or to gain access to molecules through routes which are otherwise impossible.

    Some Lerner Lab papers.

    We work quite closely with the labs of Kim Janda, Ian Wilson, and others.

    Comments and suggestions to:
    doug@scripps.edu
    or
    jonathan@scripps.edu