Daniel Romo, Ph.D., FRSC

Education

American Cancer Society Post-Doctoral Fellow - 1991-1993
Harvard University, Cambridge

Ph.D - 1986-1991
Colorado State University

B.A. Chemistry/Biology - 1982-1986

Experience

Schotts Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Co-Director of Baylor Synthesis & Drug Lead Discovery Lab
Baylor University - 2015-present

Gradipore Professor of Chemistry
Texas A&M - 2014-2015

Director, Texas A&M Undergraduate MiniPharma
Texas A&M - 2011-2015

Director, Natural Products LINCHPIN Laboratory
Texas A&M - 2010-2015

Professor of Chemistry
Texas A&M - 2003-2016

Associate Professor of Chemistry
Texas A&M - 1999-2003

Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Texas A&M - 1993-1999

Research

At the heart of our research interests are the chemistry and biology of natural products, enduring leads for basic cell biology studies and drug development. These are unique and often structurally complex molecules that are designed to interact in highly specific ways with various cellular receptors homologous to those found in humans. Our interest in a particular natural product target typically stems from a combination of biological activity and sometimes complex structure. Overall our group is engaged in developing novel synthetic strategies and methods towards the total synthesis of natural products and more recently, isotopically-labelled biosynthetic precursors, to enable further inquiries into their biological mechanism of action at the molecular level, opening possibilities for drug development, and fundamental questions regarding the biosynthesis of these genetically encoded small molecules.

The Romo Research Group

Chemistry and Biology of Natural Products:
Total Synthesis, Mechanism of Action and Biosynthetic Studies

At the heart of our research interests is the chemistry and biology of natural products, which is an exciting and enduring interdisciplinary area for discoveries in basic cell biology impacting human health. Natural products are unique and often structurally complex molecules that are designed to interact in highly specific ways with various cellular receptors and, due to protein homology, those found in humans. Our particular synthetic targets are chosen based on an interest of structural novelty and complexity in addition to provocative biological activity and importantly, unknown molecular mechanism of action. Some targets are chosen based on the presence of β-lactones or functionality derivable from β-lactones, a privileged class of heterocycles useful for activity based-protein profiling given their ability to covalently modify their protein targets. Thus, our group is engaged in developing novel synthetic strategies towards these naturally occurring compounds or derivatives that in turn serve are useful drug leads and invaluable probes for inquiries into cell biology via a forward chemical genetics approach. Our forward chemical genetics approach is bolstered by our highly collaborative research. We recently developed a toolbox of a reagents/methods that will more rapidly couple a natural product to its putative cellular receptor. These methods are being used in the soon to be established collaboration center, the CPRIT Natural Product Synthesis and Biological Chemistry Laboratory at Baylor enabling synthesis and synthesis optimization of drug leads. In a recent venture, advanced biosynthetic intermediates are being synthesized and utilized to establish biosynthetic pathways in marine sponges.

• Synthetic and Biomechanistic Investigations of Bioactive Marine-Derived Natural Products
• Asymmetric Organocascade Catalysis Including Synthesis and Novel Transformations of Beta-Lactones
• Development of Novel Strategies for Simultaneous Arming/SAR Studies of Bioactive Natural Products
• Biosynthetic Studies of the Pyrrole-2-aminoimidazole, Marine Alkaloid Family
• Activity-Based Protein Profiling with Beta-Lactones and Beta-Lactams