Our group has long-standing interests in the chemistry and biology of natural products, and in recent years have become interested in how natural products can be used to probe cellular pathways. Our research group is divided into students who develop synthetic methods to make and modify complex natural products, and students who combine some chemistry with molecular and cellular biology to address questions relating to how various natural products function. In the last five years our group has become interested in antibiotic resistance, and has made significant contributions to understanding the mechanisms of action of glycopeptide antibiotics and derivatives that overcome glycopeptide resistance. Our group has also been using glycopeptide derivatives and other antibiotics in conjunction with genetics to probe pathways involving cell wall biosynthesis and outer membrane biogenesis. We are ultimately interested in exploring whether the approach we are developing can be extended to study the assembly of other organelles as well.