Thomas Simpson has made penetrating and sustained contributions to the chemistry and biosynthesis of compounds of microbial origin, particularly polyketides. By developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods with substrates, singly and doubly labelled with carbon-13, hydrogen-2 (deuterium) or oxygen-18, he revealed detailed information on the structures of transient intermediates and has revolutionised our understanding of biosynthetic pathways in the synthesis of biologically significant compounds. He has been at the forefront of recent applications of molecular genetics to polyketide metabolites in fungi and bacteria and engineering these pathways to make novel biologically active compounds.
Subject groups
-
Chemistry
Chemistry, organic, Chemistry, biological
-
Molecules of Life
Biochemistry and molecular biology
