Xinya Zhang is a PhD student at the University of Basel since 2022. Before, she completed her Bachelor's degree at Northwest A&F University, China, laying a strong foundation in natural product chemistry. She then earned her Master's degree from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, where her thesis was titled "Study on Secondary Metabolites and Biosynthesis from a Marine Sponge-Derived Nocardiopsis dassonvillei SCSIO 40065." During her master's studies, she focused on the isolation and identification of natural products from Actinomycetes and conducted gene knockout and biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) heterologous expression.

Currently, Xinya's research centers on the structural and mechanistic investigation of key enzymes involved in ditropolonyl sulfide biosynthesis. Her work aims to elucidate the enzymes and intermediates involved in the late stages of this biosynthetic pathway through gene knockout techniques and in vitro assays. By discovering and characterizing enzymes with novel functions both mechanistically and structurally, she hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of tropone natural product biosynthesis and to the discovery of new bioactive compounds.

Publication(s):

Zhang et al. (2021): Dassonmycins A and B, polycyclic thioalkaloids from a marine sponge-derived Nocardiopsis dassonvillei SCSIO 40065. Organic Letters, 23 (8), p. 2858-2862. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.1c00328.

Li et al. (2022): Natural products from mangrove sediments-derived microbes: Structural diversity, bioactivities, biosynthesis, and total synthesis. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 23, p. 114117. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2022.114117.

Chen et al. (2022): A new xanthostatin analogue from the marine sponge-associated actinomycete Streptomyces sp. SCSIO 40064. Natural Product Research, 26 (14), p. 3529-3537. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2020.1867131.