Professor Mitchell received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002. After a short internship in medicinal chemistry at Merck Research Laboratories, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. For postdoctoral studies, he worked with Jack Dixon at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Mitchell joined the University of Illinois faculty in 2009

that span the interface of chemistry and biology

Cox, C.L.; Tietz, J.I.; Sokolowski, K.; Melby, J.O.; Doroghazi, J.R.; Mitchell, D.A. "Nucleophilic 1,4-additions for natural product discovery" ACS Chem. Biol., 9:2014-2022 (2014). doi:10.1021/cb500324n

Sinko, W.; Wang, Y.; Zhu, W.; Zhang, Y.; Feixas, F.; Cox, C.; Mitchell, D.A.; Oldfield, E.; McCammon, J.A. "Undecaprenyl diphosphate synthase inhibitors: antibacterial drug leads" J. Med. Chem., 57:5693–5701 (2014). doi:10.1021/jm5004649

Li, K.; Schurig-Briccio, L.A.; Feng, X.; Upadhyay, A.; Pujari, V.; Lechartier, B.; Fontes, F.L.; Yang, H.; Rao, G.; Zhu, W.; Gulati, A.; No, J.H.; Cintra, G.; Bogue, S.; Liu, Y.-L.; Molohon, K.; Orlean, P.; Mitchell, D.A.; Freitas-Junior, L.; Ren, F.; Sun, H.; Jiang, T.; Li, Y.; Guo, R.-T.; Cole, S.T.; Gennis, R.B.; Crick, D.C.; Oldfield, E. "Multitarget drug discovery for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases." J. Med. Chem., 57:3126-3139 (2014). doi:10.1021/jm500131s

Deane, C.D.; Mitchell, D.A. "Lessons learned from the transformation of natural product discovery to a genome-driven endeavor." J. Ind. Microbiol. Biot., 41:315-331 (2014). doi:10.1007/s10295-013-1361-8

Melby, J.O.; Li, X.; Mitchell, D.A. "Orchestration of enzymatic processing by thiazole/oxazole-modified microcin dehydrogenases." Biochemistry, 53:413-422 (2014). doi:10.1021/bi401529y

Sharma, A.; Blair, P.M.; and Mitchell, D.A. "Synthesis of plantazolicin analogues enables dissection of ligand binding interactions of a highly selective methyltransferase." Org. Lett., 15:5076-5079 (2013). doi:10.1021/ol402444a

Lee, J.; Hao, Y.; Blair, P.M.; Melby, J.O.; Agarwal, V.; Burkhart, B.J.; Nair, S.K.; Mitchell, D.A. "Structural and functional insight into an unexpectedly selective N-methyltransferase involved in plantazolicin biosynthesis." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 110:12954-12959 (2013). doi:10.1073/pnas.1306101110

Deane, C.D.; Melby, J.O.; Molohon, K.J.; Susarrey, A.R.; Mitchell, D.A. "Engineering unnatural variants of plantazolicin through codon reprogramming." ACS Chem. Biol., 8:1998-2008 (2013). doi:10.1021/cb4003392

Dunbar, K.L.; Mitchell, D.A. "Insights into the mechanism of peptide cyclodehydrations achieved through the chemoenzymatic generation of amide derivatives." J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135:8692-9701 (2013). doi:10.1021/ja4029507

Hu, Y.; Jia, S.; Ren, F.; Huang, C.-H.; Ko, T.-P.; Mitchell, D.A.; Guo, R.-T.; Zheng, Y. "Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction of YisP protein from Bacillus subtilis subsp. subtilis strain 168," Acta Cryst., F69:77-79 (2013). doi:10.1107/S1744309112049330

Dunbar, K.L.; Mitchell, D.A. "Revealing Nature's synthetic potential through the study of ribosomal natural product biosynthesis." ACS Chem. Biol., 8:473-487 (2013). doi:10.1021/cb3005325

Zhu, W.; Zhang, Y.; Sinko, W.; Hensler, M.E.; Olson, J.; Molohon, K.J.; Lindert, S.; Cao, R.; Li, K.; Wang, K.; Wang, Y.; Liu, Y.-L.; Sankovsky, A.; de Oliveira, C.A.F.; Mitchell, D.A.; Nizet, V.; McCammon, J.A.; Oldfield, E. "Antibacterial drug leads targeting isoprenoid biosynthesis." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 110:123-128 (2013). doi:10.1073/pnas.1219899110

Arnison, P., et al. "Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide natural products: overview and recommendations for a universal nomenclature." Nat. Prod. Rep., 30:108-160 (2013). doi:10.1039/C2NP20085F