Jennifer S. Forbey, Ph.D.

Summary: Natural products have a long and successful history in combatting pests and diseases. We study how the chemical arms race between specialized vertebrate herbivores and their winter food source provides a co-evolving natural experiment occurring over millennia that has generated diverse and effective sources of drugs yet to be discovered in nature for human benefit. We used the foraging behavior (i.e., plant selection or avoidance) of vertebrate herbivores that specialize on specific plants in winter as a natural bioassay to direct us to plants with biologically active chemicals. We propose that the plants avoided have higher concentration or greater diversity of chemicals can be exploited as anti-parasite, anti-microbial and anti-cancer drugs. Because dietary specialists have several mechanisms of resistance to ingested plant chemicals, we investigate whether the plants avoided by these specialists have chemicals that can inhibit mechanisms of chemical resistance. Finding inhibitors of drug resistance can contribute to overcoming multidrug resistance phenotypes in pathogens and cancer. In general, understanding the co-evolutionary chemical arms race between plants and herbivores is helping us discover plants containing chemicals that can be directly toxic to cells and could inhibit mechanisms of drug resistance in agents of human diseases.

Minimum Classes: Organic chemistry

Projects: The selected student will be responsible for preparing plant material, using headspace to analyze volatile plant chemicals and quantifying total phenolics and coumarins in plants selected and avoided by herbivores. The selected student will analyze the concentration and diversity of chemical profile, or chemotypes, across environmental conditions. The student may also co-develop cytotoxicity assays. Finally, students may work with collaborators to use computational programs to predict metabolic pathways responsible for the synthesis and metabolism of plant chemicals and the biological targets of chemicals and their metabolites.  The student will work collaboratively with professors, postdocs and graduate students in Biology and Chemistry at Boise State University and the College of Idaho in Idaho to build a diverse network of mentors who will offer diverse experiences in using nature to inspire advances in chemistry and drug discovery.