January, 2026. Congrats to Andrew from the Goodman Lab at Yale and the team on your paper being provisionally accepted by Nature Microbiology. The study elucidates a drug-microbiome-drug interaction that impacts widely used medications for Parkinson’s disease.🧫 💊
2025
December, 2025. Congrats to Phil and Yansong on your review article being accepted by MarineMedicine. This invited review covers the structural diversity and biological activities of secondary metabolites from the marine soft coral Clavularia. Qihao studied this genus in his first marine invertebrate project as a graduate student in the Guo Lab. Thank you to the MarineMedicine editorial office for the invitation!🌊
December, 2025. Congratulations to Hilary, Yansong, and team on your paper being accepted by mSystems! This collaboration with the Rowley Lab at URI and the Sanchez Lab at UCSC describes how lipopeptides and antibiotics from a marine Bacillus pumilus mediate a potential “catch and kill” effect on pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Stay tuned for more cool chemical ecology stories from our future collaborations! 🌊
December, 2025. Congrats to Wenchao and the Wang lab on your paper being provisionally accepted by Cell Chemical Biology. The team developed a highly customized molecular networking platform that enabled targeted discovery of a cryptic metabolic pathway producing aromatic glycosides with dual detoxification effects.
November, 2025. Qihao will chair a new session on Drug-Microbiome Interactions at the ASPET Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, May 17 to 20, 2026. We are very excited to attend ASPET for the first time and extend a big thanks to ASPET and our colleagues for their support. Stay tuned for more details on the lineup of speakers! 🚤
November, 2025. Qihao was invited to speak at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP2026) in Denver, Colorado, scheduled for July 26 to 29, 2026. Looking forward to seeing all of you!⛰️
November, 2025. We welcome Braden DiBello to the lab. Braden is a sophomore undergraduate majoring in engineering at Pitt. Welcome, Braden!
November, 2025. We welcome Max Chiang to the Wu Lab. Max is a senior undergraduate majoring in Natural Sciences at Pitt. Welcome aboard, Max!
October, 2025. Our collaboration with Dr. Jie Li’s lab (UT Austin) on “Discovery and Biosynthetic Interrogation of a Cobalt-Containing Terpene–PK–NRP Tribrid with Anti-Coronavirus Activity” has been accepted by JACS. Congrats, everyone!
September, 2025. We welcome Dr. Yansong Ye, who joins our Lab as a postdoc. Yansong earned his PhD at the Kunming Institute of Botany under the mentorship of Dr. Gang Xu. Before joining our lab, he trained in Dr. Jie Li’s group at UT-Austin.
July, 2025. We welcome Dr. Zhiyuan (Phil) Peng as a Research Scientist in our lab. Phil recently completed his Ph.D. with Dr. Deyu Li at URI Pharmacy🐏 , where he studied the chemical biology of nucleic acid modifications. Welcome, Phil!
July, 2025. Our lab has been awarded funding from the Competitive Medical Research Fund (CMRF), supported by UPMC. This support enables us to investigate gut microbial metabolism of dietary nutrients and their impact on host health.
July, 2025. Congrats to Rachelle from the Crawford Lab at Yale and the team on our paper being provisionally accepted in ACS Infectious Diseases. Excited to be part of this collaboration. Well done, everyone!
May, 2025. Qihao will be presenting at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Come and join the discussion in the Microbiome Session on Monday, August 4, 2025, from 1:30 PM to 3:15 PM. The meeting runs August 2–6, 2025. We look forward to connecting with colleagues from around the globe.
May, 2025. Qihao has been invited to speak at the 26th International Symposium on Microsomes and Drug Oxidations (MDO), to be held May 30–June 3, 2026, in Hong Kong. With the theme “Drug Metabolism and Disposition: Evolving Traditional Topics into the Future,” this international meeting will gather over 300 scientists from academia, industry, and regulatory agencies worldwide. Come and join us for this exciting event to discuss the latest advances in drug metabolism research!
April, 2025. Qihao will be presenting at the 2025 Virtual Younger Member Symposium of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP). Come and join the discussion with younger members of ASP from around the globe. The symposium will take place on May 8, 2025, at 1 PM Eastern Time.
April, 2025. We’re thrilled to share that our paper on GPCR drug metabolism by the human gut microbiota is now published in Nature Chemistry! 🎉 In this work, we uncovered a suite of unconventional microbial metabolic pathways that modulate GPCR-targeting drugs, revealing interactions far beyond what’s traditionally anticipated.
Huge congratulations to all co-authors! This wouldn’t have been possible without your contributions. Special thanks from Qihao to his postdoc mentor Jason, and to the amazing labs of Noah and Andy. Your support and collaboration were key to making this possible.
Also, check out the feature by Dr. Asher Jones on the Pitt Health Sciences News site: “Some Gut Bacteria Could Make Certain Drugs Less Effective” – Read the story.
February, 2025. The Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) is now accepting abstracts for the 2025 SIMB Annual Meeting and Exhibition (July 27–30, San Francisco). Deadline: May 13, 2025. Qihao will be convening the “Modern Natural Product Discovery” session and presenting in the “Mode of Action of Natural Products” session. Submit your abstract and join us in SF! 🌉✨ For more details, please visit: SIMB Annual Meeting.
January, 2025. Our collaboration with the Jie Li Lab at the University of South Carolina has led to the discovery of a novel class of chimeric polyketides as promising cancer immunogenic chemotherapeutic leads. The study is now published in JACS. Congratulations to all ! 🎉🎊
January, 2025. Qihao officially started his position, and the Wu Lab is now open!
Wu Lab at Pitt 