Ryan Moreira, a doctoral student with Prof. Scott Taylor, was awarded best student presentation at the annual Quebec-Ontario Mini-Symposium for Synthetic and Bioorganic Chemistry (QOMSBOC), hosted by McMaster University on December 3rd and 4th, 2021.
His award-winning talk described the efforts of the Taylor Lab to determine the chiral target of daptomycin (dap) – a clinical antibiotic used to treat drug-resistant infections. Through studying the interaction of dap with phosphatidylglycerol (PG) while manipulating the stereochemistry of both molecules using synthetic chemistry, the Taylor Lab showed that dap-PG interactions are strongly dependent on the stereochemistry of each component. Based on this work, they concluded that the chiral target of dap is a stereoisomer of PG.
This is the second time Ryan has won this award. Back in 2019, he was also awarded best presentation for his talk describing the synthesis of A54145D – a complex cyclic lipodepsipeptide antibiotic.
Congratulations, Ryan!