Dr. Jorge Marchand, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, has received the Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (MIRA), a major award from the National Institute of Health. The MIRA is a five-year grant designed to provide highly talented and promising investigators with stable funding, and is similar to the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.
The Early Stage Investigator MIRA award will support Dr. Marchand’s research on the biosynthesis, discovery and biocatalytic production of natural products – specifically, halogenated nucleosides and nucleoside-sulfamates. Made by certain soil microbes, halogenated nucleosides and nucleoside-sulfamates are known to possess antiviral, antibacterial and antitumor properties, making them promising lead compounds for therapeutics.
“My group will be elucidating the biochemical pathways in various bacteria and characterizing important enzymes associated with halogenation and sulfamate nucleoside formation,” Marchand says. “The discovery of these enzymes will directly contribute to the biocatalytic toolkit used by pharmaceuticals for synthesizing nucleoside-based therapeutics, helping address both current and emerging public health challenges. This award will help grow an important part of my research group that looks to discover new enzymes for synthesis of life-saving therapeutics.”
Originally published July 2, 2026