Antonio Del Rio Flores
Chemical and Biological Engineering
antonio_delrioflores@berkeley.edu

Antonio听Del Rio Flores will start as a Patten Faculty Fellow听for CU听色吧亚洲's听Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2025.听 He听earned a doctorate in chemical and biomolecular engineering from University of California, Berkeley in 2023 and will join Chaitan Khosla鈥檚 lab at Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar this summer (2023).听

Del Rio Flores studies natural products with the aim of developing new treatments for human diseases and uncovering novel enzymology. He will work with Khosla to study the biosynthesis of a natural product (NOCAP) produced by bacteria associated with clinical cases of nocardiosis, a potentially life-threatening pulmonary disease. By researching the biological activity of NOCAP, Del Rio Flores plans to further our understanding of host鈥損athogen interactions to uncover new ways to treat nocardiosis.

Overall, Del Rio Fores' research spanned in the fields of bioprocess engineering, process control simulations, plant biology听and metabolomics and听deals with studying the biosynthesis and enzymology associated with natural products from environmental bacteria and human pathogens. His听efforts led to advances in understanding the biogenesis of functional groups that are widely utilized for bioorthogonal transformations in chemical biology.听

Del Rio Flores was born in a small town in Mexico named Sahuayo that is famous for their artisan crafts and regional cuisine. He听subsequently moved to the United States at a young age and grew up in the Bay Area.听

Education

PhD, University of California, Berkeley (2023)
BS,听University of California, Davis (2018)

Awards

  • UC Berkeley Benjamin Boussert Memorial Award听(2023)
  • Stanford Science Postdoctoral Fellowship (2023)
  • Blavatnik Innovation Fellowship (2023)听 听 听 听 听 听
  • UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award (2022)听
  • NSF Research Exchange Award听 (2022)听
  • ACS Division of Chemical Biology Founder鈥檚 Award (2022)听
  • UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award (2021)听
  • SIMB Carol D. Litchfield Best Student Poster Presentation Award (2021)
  • SIMB Diversity Travel Award听 (2021)
  • UC Berkeley Graduate Student Instructor Excellence Award (2020)
  • UC Berkeley Certificate in Remote Teaching (2020)听
  • UC Berkeley Graduate Remote Instruction Innovation Fellowship (2020)听
  • UC Berkeley Chancellor鈥檚 Fellowship (2018-2020)听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听听
  • 听UC Davis Chemical Engineering Departmental Citation (2018)

Publications

  1. Del Rio Flores, A., Narayanamoorthy, M., Cai, W., Zhai, R., Yang, S., Shen, Y., Xue, Z., Seshadri, K., De Matias, K., & Zhang, W. Biosynthesis of Isonitrile Lipopeptide Metallophores from Pathogenic Mycobacteria. Biochemistry (2023).
  2. Del Rio Flores, A., Kastner, D.W., Du, Y., Narayanamoorthy, M., Shen, Y., Cai, W., Vennelakanti, V., Zill, N.A., Dell, L.B., Kulik, H.K., & Zhang, W. Probing the mechanism of isonitrile formation by a non-heme iron(II)-dependent oxidase/decarboxylase. J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2022). (Front Cover)
  3. Del Rio Flores, A., Barber, C.C., Narayanamoorthy, M., Gu, D., Shen, Y., & Zhang, W. Understanding and Engineering the Biosynthesis of Isonitrile and Alkyne-Containing Natural Products. Annu. Rev. Chem. Biomol. Eng. (2022).
  4. Del Rio Flores, A.*, Twigg, F.F.*, Du, Y., Cai, W., Aguirre, D.Q., Sato, M., Dror, M.J., Narayanamoorthy, M., Geng, J., Zill, N.A., Zhai, R., & Zhang, W. Biosynthesis of Triacsin Featuring an N-hydroxytriazene Pharmacophore. Nat. Chem. Bio (2021).
  5. Zhang, H., Goh, N., Wang, J., Pinals, R., Gonzalez-Grandio, E., Demirer, G., Butrus, S., Fakra, S., Del Rio Flores, A., Zhai, R., Zhao, B., Park, S., & Landry, M. Nanoparticle Cellular Internalization is Not Required for RNA Delivery to Mature Plant Leaves. Nat. Nano (2021).
  6. Jonnalagadda, R.*, Del Rio Flores, A.*, Cai, W., Mehmood, R., Narayanamoorthy, M., Ren, C., Zaragoza, J.T., Kulik, H.J., Zhang, W., & Drennan, C.L. Biochemical and crystallographic investigations into isonitrile formation by a non-heme iron dependent oxidase/decarboxylase. J. Biol. Chem. 296, 100231 (2021).
  7. Li, J.S. Du, Y., Gu, D., Cai, W., Green, A., Ng, S., Leung, A., Del Rio Flores, A., & Zhang, W. Discovery and Biosynthesis of Clostyrylpyrones from the Obligate Anaerobe Clostridium roseum. Org Lett. (2020).
  8. Huang, Y.-B., Luo, Y.-J., Del Rio Flores, A., Li, L.-C. & Wang, F. N-aryl pyrrole synthesis from biomass derived furans and arylamine over Lewis acidic Hf doped mesoporous SBA-15 catalyst. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 0鈥�6 (2020)