Please join Leah Gauthier for her Molecular and Macromolecular Sciences Seminar Program presentation entitled " The Chemical Potential of Soil Metabolites."

A diverse and poorly understood component of agricultural soils are the metabolites produced by soil-dwelling microorganisms. These microbes and their metabolites are largely unexplored due to the inability to culture approximately 99% of microorganisms inhabiting soils. That being said, those that are culturable can be harnessed as biomolecule factories for the production of biopesticides, a natural alternative to synthetic pesticides. In addition, the extraction and metabolomic analysis of soil biochemicals allows one to relate to its metabolic profile to its soil properties, including disease suppressive qualities and pollution levels. In this seminar research pertaining to the discovery of biopesticides active against the pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and the application of 1H NMR metabolomics for determining the impact of crop management practices will be discussed.