Dr. Lohman’s research combines focuses on elucidating the sequence-structure-function relationships of carbon-carbon bond forming enzymes in fatty acid and polyketide biosynthesis. This research is being used to design novel drugs against fatty acid synthases and for engineering the biosynthesis of novel polyketides for drug discovery. A novel aspect of Dr. Lohman’s research combining synthetic organic chemistry to generate malonyl-thioester substrate analogs and using the analogs to determine enzyme-ligand structures by X-ray crystallography.