Biography

Wuhan University, China, PI (2020- )

University of California-Berkeley, USA, Postdoc (2018-2019)

Scripps Research, USA, Postdoc (2015-2018)

The Pennsylvania State University, USA, Ph.D (2008-2014)

Wuhan University, MS (2008), BS (2005)

Research

1) Microbial energy metabolism and biosynthesis. Energy metabolism is a fundamental process for all living organisms. Previous studies revealed a novel mechanism of oxygenic photosynthesis driven by far-red light in cyanobacteria, which is of great significance for enhancing energy utilization and biomass production. Current research interests include microbial energy harvesting and conversion, and construction of microbial systems to synthesize important bioactive molecules. 2) Genetic codon expansion. Proteins are essential macromolecules of life, and commonly made up of 20 natural amino acids. With genetic codon expansion technology, we apply orthogonal aminoacyl tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs to incorporate amino acid analogs with new chemical and physical properties site-specifically into proteins, to study and engineer protein function, and develop new biological therapeutic.

Representative  Publications

1. Xia CY, Lu BW, Cui JY, Wang BY, Sun YY, Gan F^*. (2022) Engineered geranyl diphosphate methyltransferase produces 2-methyl-dimethylallyl diphosphate as a noncanonical C6 unit for terpenoid biosynthesis. Synth Syst Biotechnol. 8(1):107-113.

2. Pang B, Chen Y, Gan F, Yan C, Jin L, Gin JW, Petzold CJ, Keasling JD*. (2020) Investigation of indigoidine synthetase reveals conserved active site base residue of nonribosomal peptide synthetase oxidase. J Am Chem Soc.142(25):10931–10935

3. Crnovcic I, Gan F, Yang D, Dong LB, Schultz PG, Shen B^*. (2018) Activities of recombinant human bleomycin hydrolase on bleomycins and engineered analogues revealing new opportunities to overcome bleomycin-induced pulmonary toxicity. Bioorganic Med Chem Lett 28(16):2670-2674.

4. Gan F, Liu R, Wang F, Schultz PG^*. (2018) Functional replacement of histidine in proteins to generate noncanonical amino acid dependent organisms. J Am Chem Soc.140(11):3829-3832.

5. Shen G#, Gan F^#, Bryant DA^*. (2016) The siderophilic cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya sp. strain JSC-1 acclimates to iron starvation by expressing multiple isiA-family genes. Photosynth Res.128(3):325-340. (# equal contribution)

6. Gan F and Bryant DA^*. (2015) Adaptative and acclimative responses of cyanobacteria to far-red light. Environ Microbiol.17(10): 3450-3456.

7. Gan F, Shen G, Bryant DA^*. (2014) Occurrence of far-red light photoacclimation (FaRLiP) in diverse cyanobacteria. Life 5(1): 4-24.

8. Gan F, Zhang S, Rockwell NC, Martin SS, Lagarias LC, Bryant DA^*. (2014) Extensive remodeling of a cyanobacterial photosynthetic apparatus in far-red light. Science 345(6202):1312-1317.