A special seminar will be given by Dr. John Sorensen, Biomedical Sciences, entitled “The Annotation and Heterologous Expression of Secondary Metabolite Biosynthetic Gene Clusters from the Lichen Cladonia uncialis”. All are welcome! Bio: Dr. Sorensen received his PhD at the University of Alberta under Professor John Vederas and did his post doctoral fellow at the University of Oxford under Professor Chris Scholfield. He worked on a project that looked at the biosynthesis of beta-lactam antibiotics. The structure and biochemical function of the individual enzymes that are involved in the production of these clinically important drugs was examined in detail. He joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba in 2006. His research lab has on-going projects in all aspects of natural products that are produced by microorganisms including lichen and fungi. A mix of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology is used to probe the key chemical steps that are involved in small molecule biosynthesis.