-: Well, my name is Laura Dassama.
I'm an assistant professor of chemistry
at Stanford University.
My lab works on things related to drug resistance.
We also like to make molecules.
I don't know if you currently hear about the fact
that we are not making new antibiotics
even though we're seeing increased resistance
to all of the drugs we currently use
to treat bacterial infections.
And so my lab looks at how nature makes molecules
that can be used as antibiotics.
And what we try to then do
is see if we can design better forms,
engineer and design more potent forms
of those natural products.