BIOPROSP 2027

Dr Katherine (Kate) Duncan is a marine microbiologist and natural products researcher whose work sits at the interface of microbial ecology, metabolomics, and antibiotic discovery. She is an Associate Professor in Microbial Metabolomics and Antibiotic Discovery at Newcastle University, where she leads an interdisciplinary research programme focused on deciphering the chemical language of marine microorganisms. Her research integrates genomics, metabolomics, and environmental microbiology to understand how biological interactions and environmental conditions shape microbial secondary metabolism and to enable informed biodiscovery of new bioactive compounds.

Kate obtained an MChem in Chemistry from the University of Aberdeen, including an international placement in marine natural products in Florida, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. She subsequently undertook postdoctoral fellowships in Marine Biomedicine at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, and in Marine Biotechnology at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. She established her independent research group at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow in 2016, with tenure in 2020 and in 2024 moved to Newcastle University. Kate is an advocate for community approaches to data sharing (ActinoBase, NPAtlas, MI-BiG, GNPS etc) and equality in STEMM.

At Auburn University Dr. Liles serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the College of Sciences and Mathematics. He has made important contributions in the areas of microbiome research and disease control in agriculture and aquaculture. He has received 99 different grants as PI or co-PI with over $23 million in total awarded funds in over 30 years as a microbiology researcher and published over 150 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Liles holds six U.S. patents and eight foreign patents that have been licensed to multiple companies, and cofounded four biotech companies including Varizymes that produces enzymes used for molecular diagnostics, PCR and next-generation sequencing and Terra Bioforge that uses synthetic biology tools to produce natural products (antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs) using a CRISPR/Cas9 system to clone and express biosynthetic gene clusters that encode drugable molecules.