Professor Nancy P. Keller
University of Wisconsin
Biography
Nancy P. Keller, a leader in the field of secondary metabolism in filamentous fungi, has established the hallmark cluster motif of fungal biosynthetic gene clusters, uncovered the complex regulatory machinery governing expression and concomitant synthesis of complex natural products and elucidated the use of these metabolites as the coinage of choice in Cross-Kingdom dialog. Her pioneering work has unveiled the critical role of secondary metabolites in development of fungal diseases and microbiome assemblies. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Penn State University, her doctoral degree from Cornell University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the USDA. She is the UW Madison Robert L. Metzenberg and Kenneth B. Raper Professor of Mycology and an AAAS fellow (2005); American Phytopathological Society Fellow (2007); American Academy of Microbiology Fellow (2008); and received the Society of Industrial Microbiology Charles Thom Award for outstanding scientific contributions to the field of industrial microbiology and biotechnology (2020).