Jason Crawford, PhD
Jason M. Crawford carried out his doctoral research at the Johns Hopkins University with Craig A. Townsend. At Hopkins, Jason studied the biosynthesis of bioactive small molecules, primarily aromatic polyketides produced by fungi. Jason developed a “deconstruction” approach to functionally identify two previously unrecognized catalytic domains in the multidomain enzymes responsible for synthesizing the diverse class of fungal aromatic polyketides and to generally assign the division of labor among all of the domains in the iterative catalytic cycle, in which no free intermediates are released. Jason then carried out his postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School with Jon Clardy. At Harvard, Jason focused on bioactive small molecule discovery, bacterial microbiology, and genetics in the context of biosynthetic gene clusters governing interactions between bacteria and animals. Jason made small molecule-guided methodological advancements in culturing previously uncultured bacteria and in stimulating novel bioactive metabolite production in a multipartite symbiosis, consisting of bacteria, nematodes, and insects.
Jason joined the Departments of Chemistry and of Microbial Pathogenesis at Yale in 2012. The Crawford lab executes interdisciplinary Chemical Biology approaches to exploit natural systems for “specialized” metabolite discovery and to decode the unknown microbial small molecule functional contributors in mutualistic and pathogenic interactions.
Contact Information
Jason M. Crawford
Departments of Chemistry and of Microbial Pathogenesis
Institute of Biomolecular Design & Discovery
Molecular Innovations Center, Room 333
Yale University
PO Box 27392
West Haven, CT 06516-7392
Office: 203-737-3966
Lab: 203-737-3928
Email: jason.crawford@yale.edu
Affiliations:
Department of Chemistry, Yale University
Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale School of Medicine
Yale Institute of Biomolecular Design & Discovery
Developmental Therapeutics Program, Yale Cancer Center
Yale Center for Pulmonary Infection Research and Treatment (CPIRT)