Elizabeth Skellam

Chemistry
Assistant Professor

Elizabeth.Skellam@unt.edu

Elizabeth Skellam

Elizabeth Skellam obtained her MChem in Chemistry from the University of Wales Swansea, UK. She then moved to the University of Bristol, UK, and received a PhD in Chemistry after studying natural products biosynthesis in fungi, focused on how multifunctional enzymes synthesize complex metabolites using simple building blocks. Following her doctoral studies Dr. Skellam received a MARBIONC Business of Biotechnology fellowship and moved to the University of North Carolina Wilmington as a Visiting Research Assistant Professor in 2011. There she was involved in genome mining and metabolic engineering of marine actinobacteria and cyanobacteria. In parallel she earned a second Master's degree, in Business Administration (MBA), directly related to the commercialization of natural products' research. In 2014 she moved to Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, accepting a permanent appointment in 2015, and began to build her independent research profile. Dr. Skellam joined Department of Chemistry and the BioDiscovery at UNT in Fall 2020. Her lab focuses on natural product biosynthetic pathway elucidation and engineering to generate and develop novel biocatalysts and bioactive molecules with potential use for the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, and cosmetic industries.

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CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Discovering and elucidating novel molecules, complex secondary metabolite pathways, and unusual biosynthetic enzymes from microorganisms using chemical and biological methods
  • Developing heterologous expression systems to overcome low titres and to combine biosynthetic pathways for the production of unnatural natural products
  • Enzyme engineering to rapidly generate small libraries of bioactive small molecules with commercial applications

FOR PROSPECTIVE GRADUATE STUDENTS

Apply to the Graduate Program in Chemistry

CURRENT GRANT-FUNDED PROJECTS

  • Skellam (PI), Chapman, Carroll, Alonso (Co-PIs), 01/2023 - 12/2026, "Developing plants as new production platforms for pharmaceuticals," Keck Foundation 
  • Skellam and Chapman, 10/2025 - 12/2027, "Developing and optimizing greenhouse based-production of fungal-derived agrochemicals," Texas Research Incentive Program 

RECENT SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS

  1. L. Li, T. Ali, J. Goralczyk, S. Jayasundara, A. Paul, M. Amorim, C. Beemelmanns, E. Skellam,* "Investigating the versatility of cytochalasan cytochrome P450 monooxygenases using combinatorial biosynthesis reveals stereochemical restrictions", bioRxiv (2026), https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.02.28.708751
  2. F. Eze, S. Schoellhorn, D. Grinffiel, K. Chapman, S. Rajendran, E. Skellam,* "Assessing the biosynthetic potential of the bioherbicide Colletotrichum spinosum CBS 515.97: discovery of 3'-demethylthielavin M and assorted alkaloids", Chemistry & Biodiversity (2025), https://doi.org/10.1002/cbdv.202501247Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
  3. M. R. Amorim, S. M. Schoellhorn, C. S. Barbosa, G. R. Mendes, K. L. Macedo, A. G. Ferreira, T. Venancio, R. V. C. Guido, A. N. L. Batista, J. M. Batista Jr., E. Skellam,* R. G. S. Berlinck,* "Structure and biosynthesis of perochalasins A-C, open-chain merocytochalasans produced by the marine-derived fungus Peroneutypa sp. M16", Journal of Natural Products (2024), https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.4c00516
  4. E. Skellam,* S. Rajendran, L. Li, "Combinatorial biosynthesis for the engineering of novel fungal natural products", Communications Chemistry (2024), https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-024-01172-9 [2024 Editors' Highlights; Top 25 downloaded papers of 2024]
  5. S. Neupane, M. R. Amorim, E. Skellam,* "Discovery of unguisin J, a new cyclic peptide from Aspergillus heteromorphus CBS 117.55, and phylogeny-based bioinformatic analysis of UngA NRPS domains", Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry (2024), https://doi.org/10.3762/bjoc.20.32
  6. E. Skellam,* "Subcellular localization of fungal specialized metabolites", Fungal Biology and Biotechnology (2022), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40694-022-00140-z
  7. E. Skellam,* "Biosynthesis of fungal polyketides by collaborating and trans-acting enzymes", Natural Product Reports (2022), https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2022/np/d1np00056j
  8. E. Skellam (editor), "Engineering natural product biosynthesis: methods and protocols", Methods in Molecular Biology (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2273-5