Alessandra Eustáquio

Alessandra has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy of the University of Illinois at Chicago since August 2015. She also holds an appointment with the Center for Biomolecular Sciences. The Eustaquio laboratory aims to contribute to drug discovery and development from natural products. The Eustaquio lab uses open-source bioinformatics tools to predict the biosynthetic potential of bacteria based on their genome sequences. We then carry out genetic engineering to activate expression of silent genes and obtain the encoded natural products. We are also interested in developing synthetic biology tools to facilitate access to natural and engineered compounds. Before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Alessandra was a Principal Scientist at Pfizer, Medicinal Chemistry, Natural Products group. Prior to that, she had done postdoctoral training at the University of California San Diego, obtained a PhD in Pharmaceutical Biology from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, and a B.Sc. in Pharmacy & Biochemistry from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.