Our group uses chemical synthesis, enzymology, and molecular and structural biology to understand the chemistry and biology of the bacterial cell envelope. Some researchers in our group develop synthetic methods to make and modify complex natural products, such as enzyme substrates and inhibitors, and then use them to study enzyme mechanisms or the molecular basis of antibiotic activity. Other group members combine some chemistry with molecular and structural biology to investigate cell envelope biogenesis pathways. We seek to elucidate the fundamental principles of cell structure assembly and to characterize novel protein targets to address the growing need for new antibiotics.