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Department of Chemistry

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Aaron W. Puri

 

Aaron PuriBIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY

Assistant Professor
Faculty Member, Henry Eyring Center for Cell and Genome Science https://ccgs.utah.edu/

B.S., B.A. University of Chicago, 2008
Ph.D. Stanford University, 2013
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Washington, 2013-2018

Phone: (801) 213-1408
Office: 224F CSC
Email: a.puri@utah.edu
Twitter: @awpuri
RESEARCH GROUP

Awards:

  • NIH Pathway to Independence Award, 2016-2018

  • Stanford Graduate School of Business Ignite Fellow, 2012

  • Stanford School of Medicine SPARK Translational Research Program Scholar 2009-2012
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellow, 2008-2011

Research Interests:

We are interested in how bacteria use small molecules to interact with each other and their environment. These molecules, known as natural products or secondary/specialized metabolites, form the basis of many compounds essential to medicine and agriculture. We use underexplored bacterial communities as new sources of natural products, and to provide biological context in order to activate the production and determine the biological function of these compounds.

Core research topics:

  • Bacterial interactions mediated by natural products (chemical ecology)
  • Isolation, structural elucidation, and biosynthesis of novel natural products
  • Bacterial genetics and regulation of biosynthetic gene clusters

Selected Publications:

Puri AW, Liu D, Schaefer AL, Yu Z, Pesesky MW, Greenberg EP, & Lidstrom ME. Interspecies chemical signaling in a methane-oxidizing bacterial community. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2019. 85(7). pii: e02702-18. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02702-18

Puri AW*, Mevers E*, Ramadhar TR*, Petras D, Liu D, Piel J, Dorrestein PC, Greenberg EP, Lidstrom ME, & Clardy J. Tundrenone: An Atypical Secondary Metabolite from Bacteria with Highly Restricted Primary Metabolism. J Am Chem Soc. 2018. 140(6): 2002-2006. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b12240
*Equal contribution.

Puri AW, Schaefer AL, Fu Y, Beck DA, Greenberg EP, & Lidstrom ME. Quorum Sensing in a Methane-Oxidizing Bacterium. J Bacteriol. 2017. 199(5) pii: e00773-16. https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00773-16

Bender KO, Garland M, Ferreyra JA, Hryckowian AJ, Child MA, Puri AW, Solow-Cordero DE, Higginbottom SK, Segal E, Banaei N, Shen A, Sonnenburg JL, & Bogyo M. A small-molecule antivirulence agent for treating Clostridium difficile infection. Sci Transl Med. 2015. 7(306): 306ra148. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aac9103

Puri AW, Owen S, Chu F, Chavkin T, Beck DA, Kalyuzhnaya MG, & Lidstrom ME. Genetic tools for the industrially promising methanotroph Methylomicrobium buryatense. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2015. 81(5): 1775-81. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.03795-14

Xiao J, Broz P, Puri AW, Deu E, Morell M, Monack DM, & Bogyo M. A coupled protein and probe engineering approach for selective inhibition and activity-based probe labeling of the caspases. J Am Chem Soc. 2013. 135(24): 9130-8. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja403521u

Puri AW, Broz P, Shen A, Monack DM, & Bogyo M. Caspase-1 activity is required to bypass macrophage apoptosis upon Salmonella infection. Nat Chem Biol. 2012. 8(9): 745-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1023

Puri AW, Lupardus PJ, Deu E, Albrow VE, Garcia KC, Bogyo M, & Shen A. Rational design of inhibitors and activity-based probes targeting Clostridium difficile virulence factor TcdB. Chem Biol. 2010. 17(11): 1201-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2010.09.011

Last Updated: 6/3/21