Wintersemester 2022/2023

This lecture covers the biosynthesis of natural products with a special focus on enzymatic mechanisms. The most important classes of natural products will be introduced, e.g. terpenes, polyketides, peptides, and alkaloids. Compounds with medical importance will be highlighted. A short introduction will be given to methods of natural product discovery and biosynthetic engineering. You will learn how to identify building blocks of natural products, build biosynthetic proposals, and suggest enzyme mechanisms. A good understanding of mechanistic organic chemistry is required from the beginning but some basic concepts of biochemistry will be repeated during the course.