Liberal Arts and Sciences
Butcher Lab
Led by Rebecca Butcher · Chemistry
What we study
The Butcher Lab discovers new natural chemicals that control development, metabolism and aging by engineering nematode (worm) strains with targeted gene mutations and comparing their metabolite profiles. They purify these signals and determine their structures with mass spectrometry and NMR, and study how they are made and act.
What working here is like
- Wet lab
- Worms (C. elegans)
- Coding helps
- Projects
- 2
- Papers
- 3
Current projects
Characterization of Mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans Acyl‑CoA Oxidase
The team studies how changes in a worm enzyme affect its activity and regulation by ATP. The student made specific mutations in the enzyme and measured how these changes altered its function.
From the Spring 2025 UF Undergraduate Research Symposium · abstract book, p. 104
Effects of Length on KS Domain and Monomer Subunit Binding
Scientists made a soluble version of a worm enzyme and tested whether it prefers building blocks of different lengths, helping understand how the worm makes natural chemicals during starvation.
From the Spring 2025 UF Undergraduate Research Symposium · abstract book, p. 40
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- Comparative Metabolomics Identifies the Roles of Acyl-CoA Oxidases in the Biosynthesis of Ascarosides and a Complex Family of Secreted N-Acylethanolamines
2025 · ACS Chemical Biology
Uses metabolite comparison to reveal how specific enzymes make signaling molecules called ascarosides and N‑acylethanolamines.
- An acyl-CoA thioesterase is essential for the biosynthesis of a key dauer pheromone in C. elegans
2024 · Cell Chemical Biology
Shows that a thioesterase enzyme is required to produce the dauer pheromone, a signal controlling worm development.
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- Mapping the biosynthetic pathway of a hybrid polyketide-nonribosomal peptide in a metazoan
2021
Identifies the steps a worm uses to assemble a mixed polyketide‑nonribosomal peptide natural product.
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
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