William W. Metcalf

About

William W. Metcalf is the G. William Arends Professor of Microbiology at the University of Illinois and a faculty member at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. He holds B.S. degrees in Anthropology and Microbiology from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Purdue University, followed by postdoctoral training at Purdue and the University of Illinois. His research program focuses on two unusual microbial metabolic processes with significant biomedical, biotechnological, and environmental implications: the metabolism of reduced phosphorus compounds, particularly phosphonic acid antibiotics, and the genetic analysis of methane-producing Archaea. Metcalf's work aims to elucidate the genes and metabolic pathways involved in the biosynthesis and catabolism of phosphonate compounds, which have potent bioactivities and applications in medicine and agriculture. His group has cloned and characterized genes for many phosphonate antibiotics, developed engineered strains to overproduce these compounds, and uncovered novel biochemical reactions and metabolic pathways. In parallel, Metcalf studies methanogenic Archaea, microorganisms that produce methane and play a critical role in the global carbon cycle, renewable energy production, waste treatment, and climate change. His laboratory has developed advanced genetic tools for the methanogen Methanosarcina, enabling detailed analysis of methanogenesis pathways and microbial interactions in anaerobic…

Research topics

• Data Mining
• Biology
• Computer Science
• Computational biology
• Physics
• Genetics
• Chemistry
• Astronomy
• Biotechnology
• Biochemistry

Selected publications

• antiSMASH 7.0: new and improved predictions for detection, regulation, chemical structures and visualisation

  Nucleic Acids Research · 2023 · 2168 citations

  Microorganisms produce small bioactive compounds as part of their secondary or specialised metabolism. Often, such metabolites have antimicrobial, anticancer, antifungal, antiviral or other bio-activities and thus play an important role for applications in medicine and agriculture. In the past decade, genome mining has become a widely-used method to explore, access, and analyse the available biodiversity of these compounds. Since 2011, the 'antibiotics and secondary metabolite analysis shell-ant…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Discovery, structure and mechanism of a tetraether lipid synthase

  Nature · 2022 · 78 citations

  .

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume II: DUNE Physics

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2020 · 78 citations

  The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay -- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. DUNE is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symme…

  DOI

• Role of internal loop dynamics in antibiotic permeability of outer membrane porins

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022-02-22 · 41 citations

  articleOpen access

  Significance Antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative pathogens has been identified as an urgent threat to human health by the World Health Organization. The major challenge with treating infections by these pathogens is developing antibiotics that can traverse the dense bacterial outer membrane (OM) formed by a mesh of lipopolysaccharides. Effective antibiotics permeate through OM porins, which have evolved for nutrient diffusion; however, the conformational states of these porins regulating perm…

  PublisherDOI

• Investigating Abiotic and Biotic Mechanisms of Pyrite Reduction

  Frontiers in Microbiology · 2022-05-09 · 28 citations

  articleOpen access

  Pyrite (FeS 2 ) has a very low solubility and therefore has historically been considered a sink for iron (Fe) and sulfur (S) and unavailable to biology in the absence of oxygen and oxidative weathering. Anaerobic methanogens were recently shown to reduce FeS 2 and assimilate Fe and S reduction products to meet nutrient demands. However, the mechanism of FeS 2 mineral reduction and the forms of Fe and S assimilated by methanogens remained unclear. Thermodynamic calculations described herein indic…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Genetic Analysis of Methanogenesis by Methanosarcina species

  NSF · $160k · 2008–2009

• NIH Grant R01GM059334

  NIH · $2.1M · 2009

• Discovery, biosynthesis and bioactivity of phosphonic acid natural products

  NIH · $2.2M · 2018–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Kevin R. Sowers

  Biotechnology Institute

  56 shared

• Wilfred A. van der Donk

  Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  48 shared

• Jun Kai Zhang

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  46 shared

• Dennis Maeder

  National Cancer Institute

  37 shared

• Barry L. Wanner

  Harvard University

  37 shared

• Paul Gilna

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  31 shared

• David Bruce

  Abcam (United Kingdom)

  31 shared

• Thomas Brettin

  Argonne National Laboratory

  31 shared

Labs

• William W. Metcalf's LabPI

  The lab webpage does not provide a specific 1-2 sentence research focus.

Awards & honors

• Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Sc…
• Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology, 2010

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• James A. Imlayh-74
• Gary J. Olsenh-58
• Cari Vanderpoolh-35