Dr Luke Stevenson joined the Ferrier Research Institute as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working in the fungal factories team of Professor Emily Parker in 2019. He is now a Senior Scientist in the Synthetic and Chemical Biology Laboratory.

Prior to joining Ferrier, Luke was a PhD student in Victoria University of Wellington's School of Biological Sciences, investigating the biosynthetic gene clusters soil bacteria use to produce interesting compounds that could be useful as antibiotics or anticancer agents.

"In my previous work I studied natural product biosynthesis in uncultured environmental bacteria. That gave me a range of experiences in molecular biology, bioinformatics, fermentation and natural product isolation.
"I think the potential for gene driven natural product research is exciting, from discovery of new compounds to engineering system for high yield production."

Now based in Professor Emily Parker's lab, Luke is working on projects using synthetic biology principles for reconstitution of natural product biosynthetic gene clusters in different microbial hosts.

"The team at Ferrier are great to work with and the combination of academic research and the commercial focus is really interesting. I've enjoyed contributing to the institute's research by applying my background in molecular and synthetic biology to the production of useful chemistry."