Professor Chris Willis
B.Sc.(Lond.), D.Phil.(Sus.)
Current positions
Professor of Organic Chemistry
School of Chemistry
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
Natural products isolated from bacteria, fungi and plants from both marine and terrestrial environments are a rich source of compounds of medicinal and agrochemical importance. We have published >130 papers which centre upon:-
- Structure elucidation and total synthesis of natural products
- Design and synthesis of probes to elucidate biosynthetic pathways and enzyme mechanisms
- Enantioselective synthesis of amino acids and heterocycles
- Isotopic labelling, biotransformations and reaction mechanisms
Professor Willis is a supervisor in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Chemical Synthesis
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Harnessing the Power of Diels-Alderases in Sustainable Chemoenzymatic Synthesis
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/12/2023 to 30/11/2026
Harnessing the Power of Diels-Alderases in Sustainable Chemoenzymatic Synthesis
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/12/2023 to 30/11/2026
Harnessing the Power of Diels-Alderases in Sustainable Chemoenzymatic Synthesis
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/12/2023 to 30/11/2026
8083 BBSRC - Prof Chris Willis Unlocking the potential
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/10/2019 to 30/09/2022
Structural and Mechanistic Investigations of Antibiotic Production in Bacteria
Principal Investigator
Description
There is an indisputable problem of antibiotic resistance and an urgent need for the discovery and development of new antibiotics that are cost effective to produce. In February 2017, the…Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
Thesis supervisions
Photochemistry and Catalysis
Supervisors
Synthetic Strategies to Natural Antibiotics and Novel Derivatives
Supervisors
Towards the Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Viburspiran
Supervisors
Synthetic Studies on Diarylheptanoids and Diterpenes
Supervisors
Maleidride Natural Products
Supervisors
Structural and Functional Interrogation of the Abyssomicin C Biosynthetic Pathway
Supervisors
Palladium catalysed functionalisation of heterocycles
Supervisors
Developing a ‘Reverse-Biomimetic’ Synthesis of Arogenate and its Analogues using a Dearomatising Intramolecular Acylation Strategy.
Supervisors
Lithiation—Borylation Methodology
Supervisors
Biosynthetic Studies on Kalimantacin Antibiotics
Supervisors
Biosynthetic studies on maleidride natural products
Supervisors
Mechanisms for the Generation of Structural Diversity in Polyketide Biosynthesis
Supervisors
Studies on the Biosynthesis of Spirotetronate Polyketides
Supervisors
Synthetic and Biosynthetic Studies on Antibiotic Natural Products
Supervisors
[2+2]-Photocycloaddition Reactions in the Synthesis of Novel Scaffolds and Natural Products
Supervisors
Synthetic and biosynthetic studies on the ambruticins
Supervisors
Synthesis of Novel Substrates to Probe the Specificities of Mupirocin Enzymes
Supervisors
Studies on Pseudomonic Acid B Formation in the Biosynthesis of Mupirocin
Supervisors
Synthetic and Biosynthetic Studies on Heterocycle Formation in Polyketide Biosynthesis
Supervisors
Synthetic and biosynthetic studies on polyketide natural products
Supervisors
Exploring the Potential of Diels—Alderases as Biocatalysts
Supervisors
Investigations into the Use of Photoredox Catalysis for the Synthesis of Indoloazepinone Scaffolds
Supervisors
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Exploit Diels-Alderases in Synthesis
Supervisors
Studies on Diels-Alderase Enzymes in Tetronate Biosynthetic Pathways
Supervisors
Functional Inequivalence of Tandem Acyl Carrier Proteins in the Leinamycin Family of Polyketide Synthases
Supervisors
Probing the Structures of Phomonol and Phomolide F by Total Synthesis
Supervisors
Synthetic and Biosynthetic Approaches Towards Oxygen-Containing Polyketide Natural Products
Supervisors
Structural enzymology of spirotetronate cyclases
Supervisors
Antibiotics from the Abyss - Establishing the Bristol Sponge Microbiome Collection as an Antibiotic Discovery Pipeline
Supervisors
Exploitation of highly strained rings in the development of photoredox-catalysed transformations
Supervisors
Towards the synthesis of the hasubanan alkaloids and studies towards a homologative cross coupling of aldehydes
Supervisors
Desiging water soluble peptides to guide membrane peptide assembly
Supervisors
Part I. Synthesis of a Stable, Fluorinated Thromboxane A₂ Analogue and its Application as a Hapten for Monoclonal Antibody Generation. Part II. Difunctionalisation of C–C σ-bonds Enabled by Strained Boronate Complexes.
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
17/06/2026Creating molecular complexity in the chemoenzymatic synthesis of chlorothricin analogues using tandem Diels–Alderases
Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry
Mutasynthesis and Antibiotic Activity of Mupirocin Analogues
ChemBioChem
OSMAC guided bioprospecting of Atlantic sponges reveals novel bacterial species and evidence for the antimicrobial thiazole alkaloid agrochelin II
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Chemoenzymatic total synthesis of the antibiotic (−)-13-deoxytetrodecamycin using the Diels–Alderase TedJ
Chemical Science
Complete genome sequences of two actinomycetes containing abyssomicin-like gene clusters
Microbiology Resource Announcements
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