Wenjian Lan

Biography

Wenjian Lan, Associate Professor. She received PhD degree in organic chemistry from Sun Yat-sen University in 2004. She did research at Oregon State University in 2009-2010. Dr. Lan’s research focuses on exploring marine natural products of soft corals, sponges, sea stars and their associated microorganisms. These chemically prolific organisms are sources of structurally unique and biologically significant secondary metabolites and some of them are expected to develop as potential therapeutic agents or biological tools for basic studies of life sciences. She has been involved in their discovery and evaluation in the areas of cancer and infectious disease, as well as agricultural uses. Lan has also examined the biosynthetic pathways of structurally and/or biologically important compounds to explore the real origin of these compounds isolated from marine microorganism-invertebrate assemblages. An additional subject of her interest is to investigate chemical ecology of marine microorganism associated with invertebrate hostsfor the targeted isolation of bioactive producing microorganisms. More recently, she is developing strategies that will maximize the diversity and secondary metabolite production of cultured marine microorganisms. Until now, she has published over 50 scientific papers and holds 4 patents.

Research Interest

Investigate chemical ecology of marine microorganism associated with invertebrate hostsfor the targeted isolation of bioactive producing microorganisms. More recently, she is developing strategies that will maximize the diversity and secondary metabolite production of cultured marine microorganisms