With the rise of multi-drug resistant bacterial strains, there is an urgent need for a renewed focus on antibiotic research. The van der Donk lab focuses on the discovery, mechanism, mode of action, and bioengineering of two classes of antibiotics that are underexplored and have potential for human therapeutic use: ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) and phosphonates. Research in the group also focuses on the link between peptides and mammalian systems; for example, characterizing mammalian homologs of RiPP genes or bioengineering of RiPPs as protein-protein interaction inhibitors. The unique biosynthetic pathways of RiPPs are well-suited for natural product discovery through synthetic biology approaches and genome mining. Research in the group uses a combination of synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, enzymology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics to address our questions at the interface of chemistry and biology.