Team Parker
Based in the Ferrier Research Institute in Kelburn, Team Parker's focus is synthetic and chemical biology.
On this page:
Research
Team Parker's research focuses on:
- chemistry and biochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions to aid the development of new treatments for diseases
- using the natural biosynthetic machinery for the efficient generation of valuable products
- using computational and experimental approaches to study the molecular details of communication networks in proteins.
Solving problems
Check out the research topics that Team Parker has worked on;
Fungal factories
Learn more about how Team Parker engineer fungi for the production of bioactive molecules, with potential applications as insecticides or therapeutics.
Human therapeutics by targeting proteins
Learn more about how Team Parker are designing new antibiotics using computational and experimental methods to develop treatments for diseases.
Other topics
Learn more about the topics the Ferrier team is working on.
Team leader
Professor of Chemical Biology
Ferrier Research Institute
Deputy Director Academic and Research
Ferrier Research Institute
Team members
Jo Inglis
Team Coordinator
Ferrier Research Institute
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Ferrier Research Institute
Scientist
Ferrier Research Institute
Scientist · Synthetic Biology
Ferrier Research Institute · Synthetic and Chemical Biology Laboratory
Students
PhD candidates at the Ferrier Research Institute are listed below, along with their thesis title and supervisors.
| Name | Topic | Supervisors |
|---|---|---|
| Lani Burke | Investigating transcriptional regulation to enhance natural product biosynthesis in Penicillium paxillin | Emily Parker, Luke Stevenson |
| Florian de Pol | Unveiling the evolution of allostery in adenosine triphosphate phosphoribosyl transferases | Emily Parker, Gerd Mittelstadt |
| Natasha Nipper | Decoration of the indole ring in indole diterpene biosynthesis | Emily Parker, Rosannah Cameron |
| Yehezkiel (Kiel) Victorio | Development of metabolic engineering tools for endophytic fungi | Emily Parker, Yonthan Lukito |
| Adam Hannaford | Building a multidisciplinary pipeline to mine and verify unique indole diterpene cyclases that generate interesting cyclised structures | Emily Parker, Daniel Berry |
| Rue Parker | Investigating the Transcriptional Regulation of Natural Products Biosynthesis in Epichloë festuca | Emily Parker, Daniel Berry |
| Sarah Douglas | Investigating Novel Enzyme Function in Indole-Diterpene Biosynthetic Pathways | Emily Parker, Daniel Berry |
Publications
Latest publications 2025
Journal of the American Chemical Society 2025
ChemBioChem 2025 Vol. n/a Issue n/a Pages e202400943
Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal 2025
2024
Journal of the American Chemical Society 2024
ACS Central Science 2024 Vol. 10 Issue 2 Pages 344-357