Dr. Tyler Stack’s Lab

About Our Research

Dr. Stack’s research group started in 2021 to focus on discovering new bacterial metabolism. Bacteria are opportunists, capable of digesting a variety of molecules we do not consider to be food. A majority of my research group students are studying how the trillions of bacteria in our intestines can digest the drugs we take. These changes can affect therapeutics’ safety and efficacy, and we are aiming to discover and characterize how widely these modifications occur. We are also interested in studying bacteria that can degrade otherwise chemically resistant plastics and determine if these bacteria are present in our local Narragansett Bay. In collaboration with Dr. Pike, undergraduates are also researching how to introduce new genes into yeast to produce new compounds and flavors during the brewing process. Undergraduates in Dr. Stack’s research group can expect to learn various techniques. Students use bioinformatics to study the hundreds of millions of protein sequences in public databases, microbiology to culture gut bacteria in our anaerobic chamber, and enzymology to purify and characterize proteins that can degrade plastics and proteins.

Our Students

Lily Lockhart, ’22
Emma Fink, ’22
Kailey Paar, ’23
Emma Mortara, ’24

Recent Publications

Stack, T. M. M., Gerlt, J. A. Discovery of novel pathways for carbohydrate metabolism. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. Published online ahead of print. 61:63-70. PubMed ID 33197748.

Stack, T. M. M., Morrison, K. N., Dettmer, T. M., Wille, B., Kim, B., Joyce, R., Jermain, M., Naing, Y. T., Bhatti, K., San Francisco B., Carter, M.S., Gerlt, J. A. Characterization of an L-Ascorbate Catabolic Pathway with Unprecedented Enzymatic Transformations. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2020 142(4):1657-1661. Pubmed ID 31917558.