Karen Wendt

Research Associate

Supervisor: Cichewicz
Email: klwendt@ou.edu

Education:
B.S., Microbiology with Biomedical Emphasis, University of Wisconsin La Crosse
Minor, Chemistry, University of Wisconsin La Crosse

I have been a part of the Natural Products Discovery Group since 2015. I curate our fungal isolate collection containing more than 80k fungi, which includes cultivating the fungi for chemical studies. Due to this extensive fungal collection we have built, I am able to investigate the diversity of soil dwelling fungal species across the United States and their secondary metabolites. One way I do this is high throughput screening for early stage drug discovery purposes using our fungal extracts and compounds. Currently, my bioassays look for new compounds to treat infections with Trichomonas vaginalis and various Candida species. I also work on several projects using untargeted metabolomics to assess best practices for natural product library design, looking for evidence-based rules for library building.

Publications

Publications

Senadeera SPD, Wang D, Kim C-K, Smith EA, Durrant DE, Alexander PA, Wendt KL, Stephen AG, Morrison DK, Cichewicz RH, Henrich CJ, & Beutler JA. (2022) Tolypocladamides A-G: Cytotoxic Peptaibols from Tolyplocladium inflatum. J Nat. Prod. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.2c00240.
Anderson VM*, Wendt KL*, Caughron JB, Matlock HP, Rangu N, Najar FZ, Miller AN, Luttenton, MR, & Cichewicz RH. (2022) Assessing Microbial Metabolic and Biological Diversity to Inform Natural Product Library Assembly. J Nat. Prod. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.1c01197.
Bernatchez JA, Kil Y-S, d Silva EB, Thomas D, McCall L-I, Wendt KL, Souza, JM, Ackermann J., McKerrow JH, Cichewicz RH & Siqueira-Neto JL. (2022) Identification of Leucinostatins from Ophiocordyceps sp. as Antiparasitic Agents against Trypanosoma cruzi. ACS Omega DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.1c06347.
Anderson VM, Wendt KL, Najar FZ, McCall L-I, & Cichewicz RH. (2021) Building Natural Product Libraries Using Quantitative Clade-Based and Chemical Clustering Strategies. mSystems. DOI: 10.1128/mSystems.00644-21.
Smith EA, Hill NT, Gelb T, Garman KA, Goncharova EI, Bokesch HR, Kim C-K, Wendt KL, Cichewicz RH, Gustafson KR, Brownell I, & Henrich CJ. (2021) Identification of natural product modulators of Merkel cell carcinoma cell growth and survival. Sci Rep. DOI: 10.1028/s41598-021-93097-9.
Kim C-K, Krumpe LRH, Smith E, Henrich CJ, Brownell I, Wendt KL, Cichewicz RH, O’Keefe BR, & Gustafson KR. (2021) Roseabol A, a New Peptaibol from the Fungus Clonostachys rosea. Molecules. DOI: 10.3390/molecules26123594.
Lee JW, Collins JE, Wendt KL, Chakrabarti D, & Cichewicz RH. (2021) Leveraging Peptaibol Biosynthetic Promiscuity for Next-Generation Antiplasmodial Therapeutics. J Nat. Prod. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.0c01370.
Tran TD, Wilson BAP, Henrich CJ, Wendt KL, King J, Cichewicz RH, Stchigel AM, Miller AN, O’Keefe BR, & Gustafson KR. (2020) Structure elucidation and absolute configuration of metabolites from the soil-derived fungus Dictyosporium digitatum using spectroscopic and computational methods. Phytochemistry. DOI: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2020.112278
Carter AC, Petersen CL, Wendt KL, Helff SK, Risinger AL, Mooberry SL & Cichewicz RH. (2019) In Situ Ring Contraction and Transformation of the Rhizoxin Macrocycle though an Abiotic Pathway. J Nat. Prod. DOI: 10.1021/acs/jnatprod.8b00974
Tran TD, Wilson BAP, Henrich CJ, Staudt LM, Krumpe LRH, Smith EA, King J, Wendt KL, Stchigel AM, Miller AN, Cichewicz RH, O’Keefe BR, & Gustafson KR. (2019) Secondary Metabolites from the Fungus Dictyosporium sp. and Their MALT1 Inhibitory Activities. J Nat. Prod. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.8b00871
Kumaraswamy E, Wendt KL, Augustine LA, Stecklein SR, Sibala EC, Li D, Gunewardena S, & Jensen RA. (2014) BRCA1 regulation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression in breast cancer cells involves microRNA-146a and is critical for its tumor suppressor function. Oncogene. DOI: 10.1038/onc.2014.363

*indicates coauthor