Ben Shen – UF Innovate

Chemists Honored for Natural Products and RNA Innovations That Changed Science (The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute)

sooyoungryu — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:57:26 +0000

Two University of Florida researchers, Ben Shen, Ph.D., and Matthew Disney, Ph.D., at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology have been recognized for pioneering advances in natural products chemistry and RNA science, discoveries that have significantly shaped modern biomedical research and opened new pathways for therapeutic innovation.

Antibody-Cancer Drug Combo Shows Promise Against Aggressive Lymphoma

sooyoungryu — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Cancer-hunting antibodies coupled with a natural compound found in soil microbes proved a powerful combination against an aggressive type of blood cancer, according to a study from scientists at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology.

The cancer-killing compound, called tiancimycin, was found within a historic collection of soil microbes housed at the institute. The research team’s antibody-drug combo, or ADC, showed a striking ability to kill aggressive lymphomas while ignoring healthy, noncancerous cells in blood samples donated by cancer patients.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, focused on diffuse large B cell lymphoma, one of the more common, and aggressive, subtypes of white blood cell cancers. The study results appear July 1 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society Au.

A Living Library: Rare Collection at UF Drives Breakthroughs in Biomedical Discovery

Sara Dagen — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Peek through the labyrinth of vials that make up the Natural Products Discovery Center, and you will see thousands of purified, freeze-dried microbes once assembled from across the planet’s most diverse ecologies. Some were gathered from the soil beds of rainforests. Others came from coastal marshes and estuaries, the deep waters of the ocean, the fallen leaves of withering plants, and even the decomposing dung of animals.

Compiled over the course of 80 years, some of the organisms in the collection’s glass vials are likely extinct in the natural world, offering an irreplaceable window into the past. For Ben Shen, PhD, a professor of chemistry and director of the Natural Products Discovery Center, and his research team at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Jupiter, Florida, these unexplored microbes — a treasure trove of biodiversity — hold untold promise for treating disease, providing a tantalizing glimpse into the future of drug discovery.

A natural product is a substance produced by a living organism that imparts an evolutionary or fitness advantage. Such materials can be found in soil, water, roots, algae, plants, animals, or microbes and in all types of ecologies. Because the microbial organisms that create these natural products evolve amid unique surroundings, they develop adaptations that are finely tailored to their environment and aid their survival. These advantages can range widely, from assisting in reproduction to poisoning adversaries or disarming predators.

Researchers have prized natural products, in all their astonishing diversity and unmatched structural complexity, for their pharmacological and medicinal potential.

“Natural products have made a profound impact on the history of drug development, leading to the creation of some of the world’s most important medicines,” Shen said.