Dr Alex Mullins

Supervisor Details

Contact Details

Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick

Scientific Background

Research Interests

Microorganisms supply the world with a considerable number of bioactive compounds used in medicine and agriculture. Changes in the structure of these compounds can influence their efficacy as antibiotics, anti-cancer agents, and pesticides. The rational design and synthesis of these compounds represents an exciting and important research field known as “engineering biology”.

Many of these compounds are produced in bacteria by large multi-enzyme systems known as polyketide synthases (PKSs) and non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) that work as an assembly line to create the final product. These assembly lines are encoded in bacterial genomes by sets of genes known as biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). As part of evolution, bacteria can remove, duplicate, or substitute different sections of the assembly lines, thereby changing the final product and creating structural diversity. My research aims to exploit this natural process of diversification by comparing assembly lines to identify the “cut sites” used by Nature to modify PKSs without disrupting enzyme function. This will accelerate the rational design and bioengineering of these structurally complex natural products, and benefit pharmaceutical and agrichemical industries.

Research Groups

Challis / Alkhalaf Group

Supervision Style

In three words or phrases: Supportive, detail-oriented, organised

Provision of Training

I will ensure you have a strong technical and conceptual understanding of the work early in the project. that will allow for more independence later in the project. I encourage my students learning new techniques from other research groups whether directly or indirectly related to the project to support an expanding skillset.

Progression Monitoring and Management

There is a weekly group meeting that rotates around the lab as to who is presenting. Alongside group meetings, students have regular supervisor progress meetings every few weeks to discuss the details of your progress and direct the next steps. These meetings are supplemented with an open-door policy for any quick questions or queries. I like to be kept up to date with your research to assist with troubleshooting and help you plan future work. I encourage students to develop their own ideas and goals on the project and develop their initiative.

Communication

Regular and timely communication is important to research success and good student-supervisor working relationship. I am contactable via e-mail/in-person/dedicated lab WhatsApp group during working hours for instant responses where possible. Outside of work hours my reply turnaround time will be variable. If I contact you outside of work hours I do not expect a response.

Meetings

PhD Students can expect scheduled meetings with me at least once per week. These meetings will be face to face. I am usually contactable for an instant response on every working day.

Working Patterns

The timing of work in my lab is completely flexible, and (other than attending pre-arranged meetings) I expect students to manage their own time. Core hours are ideally 10 - 4 but this is flexible based on personal schedules and the nature of the project.

Notice Period for Feedback

I need at least 1 week’s notice to provide feedback on written work of up to 5000 words.

MIBTP Project Details

Previous Projects (2025-26)

Primary supervisor for:

Evolution-guided engineering of bacterial natural product biosynthesis

See the PhD Opportunities section to see if this project is currently open for applications via MIBTP.

Please Note: The main page lists projects via BBSRC Research Theme(s) quoted and then relevant Topic(s).

Evolution-guided engineering of bacterial natural product biosynthesis

Secondary Supervisor(s): Professor Greg Challis, Dr Lona Alkhalaf

University of Registration: University of Warwick

BBSRC Research Themes:

Sustainable Agriculture and Food (Plant and Crop Science)
Renewable Resources and Clean Growth (Industrial Biotechnology)
Understanding the Rules of Life (Microbiology)
Integrated Understanding of Health (Pharmaceuticals)

Project Outline

Bacteria supply the world with an extraordinary number of useful bioactive compounds with uses in agriculture as pesticides and herbicides, and medicine as antimicrobials and pharmaceuticals. This breadth of functionality stems from the impressive structural diversity of these compounds that influences their size, composition, stereochemistry, functional groups, and cyclisation.

The lab exploits a genomic data-driven approach to discovering and engineering natural products by exploring the natural variations observed in Nature and harnessing these to manipulate biosynthetic gene pathways. Bioinformatics analyses (phylogenetics, genome mining, sequence comparison) provide insights into the evolution, diversity, and distribution of biosynthetic gene clusters. While downstream research combines microbiology, molecular biology, and analytical chemistry. This interdisciplinary approach is supported by close collaboration with other academics engaged in chemical biology research.

Current projects focus on the discovery and engineering of three classes of natural product: fatty acid-derived polyynes, polyketide-derived glutarimides, and non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs). Polyynes are structurally intriguing compounds with alternating single-triple C-C bonds, and possess antifungal and anti-Staphylococcus activity. Glutarimides possess antifungal and anti-cancer activity. NRPs are structurally diverse compounds biosynthesised by non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs). NRPSs function as assembly lines with structured catalytic domain architectures. By mapping natural recombination events in these systems we aim to engineer these assembly lines to produce novel derivatives with altered bioactivity.

Aim

This genomics-driven PhD project will exploit bacterial genomics to identify and understand Natural recombination events in biosynthetic gene clusters. These events will be reconstructed, manipulated, and expanded in the lab to engineer novel assembly lines and biosynthesise novel natural product derivatives.

Techniques

This is an interdisciplinary project that will combine the following techniques:

Bacterial genomics (bioinformatics)
Microbiology (aseptic technique, antimicrobial activity assays)
Molecular genetics (cloning, TAR)
Metabolic profiling (LC-MS)
Metabolite purification (HPLC)
Structural elucidation (NMR)

Previous Projects (2024-25)

Primary supervisor for:

Evolution-guided engineering of bacterial NRPS systems