Sibongile Mafu
Assistant Professor
University of Massachusetts
USA
Biography
Sibongile Mafu is currently an Assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Dr. Mafu received her PhD from Iowa State University, USA (2013) followed by a postdoctoral research position at the University of California – Davis. My research focuses on understanding the biological chemistry of plant natural products primarily terpenes. This encompasses identification and biochemical functional characterization of the enzymes to decipher biosynthetic pathways and structure-function analysis of the enzymes to probe their mechanism of action. The research contributes to developing bio-based sustainable platforms for natural product biosynthesis.
Research Interest
Biochemical diversity underlying plant natural product chemistry through elucidation of the biosynthetic components involved in the formation of specialized metabolites