Elizabeth N. Bess
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Biography
Elizabeth N. Bess is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Utah in 2015, studying under the guidance of Professor Matthew S. Sigman. Her academic journey began with a B.S. in Biological Chemistry, magna cum laude, also from the University of Utah in 2009. Before joining UC Irvine in 2018, Bess was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, where she worked with Professor Peter J. Turnbaugh in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology from 2015 to 2018.
Bess's research primarily investigates the interactions between the human gut microbiota and pharmacokinetics, focusing on how gut bacteria affect drug metabolism and neurodegenerative diseases. She has published extensively, with her work appearing in notable journals such as Nature Microbiology and Science. Her research has been supported by multiple funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, which awarded her the prestigious CAREER Award. Significant projects under her leadership include exploring gut bacterial pathways influencing Parkinson’s disease and developing methodologies to harness gut microbiota for sustainable chemical production.
At UC Irvine, Bess teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in chemical and structural biology and organic chemistry. She has developed new course modules focused on scientific presentation and research proposal writing. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Bess is actively involved in mentorship, including her role as a faculty mentor for the UC Irvine Association for Women in Science. Her service extends to the broader academic community through her participation in various scientific societies and advisory boards, such as the Irvine Infectious Disease Science Initiative.
Return to topEducation
- PhD in Chemistry, University of Utah, 2015
- B.S. in Biological Chemistry, University of Utah, 2009
Distinctions
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient, 2024
- De Gallow Professor of the Year Honorable Mention, UC Irvine, 2024–2029
- Scialog Fellow: Microbiome, Neurobiology, and Disease, Research Corp., 2023
- Young Investigator Grant for Probiotics Research, Global Probiotics Council, 2021–2023
- UC Irvine Hellman Fellow, 2021
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, Life Sciences Research Fndtn, 2020
- Career Development Grant for Postdoctoral Women, Amer. Society for Microbiology, 2016–2018
- Cheves Walling Award for Excellence in Graduate Research, Dept. of Chem., Univ. of Utah, 2015
- Anna Louise Hoffman Award, Graduate Research, Iota Sigma Pi Nat’l Honor Society, 2014–2015
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Honorable Mention, 2013
- National Institutes of Health R01 (National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke), 2025
Areas of Expertise
- Chemical Biology
- Gut Microbiome
- Biocatalysis
- Neurodegeneration
- Asymmetric Catalysis
- Electrochemical Sensing
- Microbial Metabolism
- Drug Metabolism
- Bacterial Genetics
- C–H Functionalization
Recent Publications
- Alam, Y., Hakopian, S., Ortiz de Ora, L., Tamburini, I., Avelar-Barragan, J., Jung, S., Long, Z., Chao, A., Whiteson, K., Jang, C., Bess, E. N., “Variation in Human Gut Microbiota Impacts Tamoxifen Pharmacokinetics”, mBio, 2024.
- Balsamo, J. M., Zhou, K., Kammarchedu, V., Ebrahimi, A., Bess, E. N., “Mechanistic Insight into Intestinal α-Synuclein Aggregation in Parkinson’s Disease Using a Laser-Printed Electrochemical Sensor” (opens in new tab), ACS Chemical Neuroscience, 2024.
- Kyaw, T.S., Zhang, C., Sandy, M., Trepka, K., Zhang, S., Ramirez Hernande, LA., Ramirez, ., Goh, J.J.N., Yu, K., Dimassa, V., Bess, E.N., Brockert, J.G., Dumlao, D.S., Bisanz, J.E., Turnbaugh, P.J., “Human Gut Actinobacteria Boost Drug Absorption by Secreting P-Glycoprotein ATPase Inhibitors” (opens in new tab), iScience, 2024.
- Ortiz de Ora, L., Uyeda, K. S., Bess, E. N., “Discovery of a Gut Bacterial Metabolic Pathway that Drives α-Synuclein Aggregation and Neurodegeneration” (opens in new tab), ACS Chemical Biology, vol. 19, pp. 1011–1021, 2024.
- Rich, B.E., Jackson, J. C., Ortiz de Ora, L., Long, Z. G., Uyeda, K. S., Bess. E. N., “Alternative Pathway for Dopamine Production by Acetogenic Gut Bacteria that O-Demethylate 3-Methoxytyramine, a Metabolite of Catechol O-Methyltransferase” (opens in new tab), J. Appl. Microbiol., vol. 133, pp. 1697-1708, 2022.
- Ortiz de Ora, L., Bess, E. N., “The Emergence of Caenorhabditis elegans as a Model Organism for Dissecting the Gut–Brain Axis” (opens in new tab), mSystems, vol. 6, pp. e00755-21, 2021.
- Maini Rekdal, V, Bernardino, P. N., Luescher, M. U., Kiamehr, S., Le, C., Bisanz, J. E., Turnbaugh, P. J., Bess, E. N., Balskus, E.P., “A Widely Distributed Metalloenzyme Class Enables Gut Microbial Metabolism of Host- and Diet-Derived Catechols” (opens in new tab), eLife, vol. 9, pp. e50845, 2020.
- Bisanz, J. E., Soto-Perez, P., Noecker, C., Aksenov, A., Lam, K. N., Kenney, G. E., Bess, E. N., Haiser, H. J., Kyaw, T. S., Yu, F. B., Rekdal, V. M., Ha, C. W. Y., Devkota, S., Balskus, E. P., Dorrestein, P. C., Allen-Vercoe, E., Turnbaugh, P. J., “A Genomic Toolkit for the Mechanistic Dissection of Intractable Human Gut Bacteria” (opens in new tab), Cell Host Microbe, vol. 27, pp. 1001-1013.e9, 2020.
- Bess, E. N., Bisanz, J., Yarza, F., Bustion, A., Rich, B. E., Li, X., Kitamura, S., Waligurski, E., Ang, Q. Y., Alba, D. L., Spanogiannopoulos, P., Nayfach, S., Koliwad, S. K., Wolan, D. W., Franke, A. A., Turnbaugh, P. J., “Genetic Basis for the Cooperative Bioactivation of Plant Lignans by Eggerthella lenta and Other Human Gut Bacteria” (opens in new tab), Nature Micro., vol. 5, pp. 56–66, 2020.
- Carmody, R., Bisanz, B., Bowen, B., Maurice, C., Lyalina, S., Louie, K., Treen, D., Chadaideh, K., Rekdal, V., Bess, E. N., Spanogiannopoulos, P., Ang, Q. Y., Bauer, K., Balon, T., Pollard K., Northen, T., Turnbaugh, T., “Cooking Shapes the Structure and Function of the Gut Microbiome” (opens in new tab), Nature Micro., vol. 4, pp. 2052–2063, 2019.
- Maini Rekdal, V., Bess, E. N., Bisanz, J. E., Turnbaugh, P. J., Balskus, E. P., “Discovery and Inhibition of an Interspecies Gut Bacterial Pathway for Levodopa Metabolism” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 364, pp. eaau6323, 2019.
- Sigman, M. S., Harper, K. C., Bess, E. N., Milo, A., “The Development of Multidimensional Analysis Tools for Asymmetric Catalysis and Beyond”, Acc. Chem. Res., vol. 49, pp. 1292–1301, 2016.
- Spanogiannopoulos, P., Bess, E. N., Carmody, R. N., Turnbaugh, P. J., “The Microbial Pharmacists Within: A Metagenomic View of Xenobiotic Metabolism” (opens in new tab), Nature Rev. Microbiol., vol. 14, pp. 273–287, 2016.
- Mougel, V., Santiago, C. B., Zhizhko, P. A., Bess, E. N., Varga, J., Frater, G., Sigman, M. S., Coperet, C., “Quantitatively Analyzing Metathesis Catalyst Activity and Structural Features in Silica-Supported Tungsten Imido-Alkylidene Complexes”, J. Am. Chem. Sci., vol. 137, pp. 6699–6704, 2015.
- Bess, E. N., Guptill, D., Davies, H. M. L., Sigman, M. S., “Using IR Vibrations to Quantitatively Describe and Predict Site-Selectivity in Multivariate Rh-Catalyzed C–H Functionalization”, Chem. Sci., vol. 6, pp. 3057–3062, 2015.
- Bess, E. N., Bischoff, A. J., Sigman, M. S., “Designer Substrate Library for Quantitative, Predictive Modeling of Reaction Performance”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A, vol. 111, pp. 14698–14703, 2014.
- Bess, DeLuca, R. J., Tindall, J., Oderinde, M. S., Roizen, J., Du Bois, J., Sigman, M. S., “Analyzing Site Selectivity in Rh Intermolecular C–H Amination Reactions”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 136, pp. 5783–5789, 2014.
- Milo, A., Bess, E. N., Sigman, M. S., “Interrogating Selectivity in Catalysis using Molecular Vibrations”, Nature, vol. 507, pp. 210–214, 2014.
- Bess, E. N., Sigman, M. S., “Distinctive Meta-Directing Group Effect for Iridium-Catalyzed 1,1-Diarylalkene Enantioselective Hydrogenation”, Org. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 646–649, 2013.
- Harper, K. C., Bess, E. N., Sigman, M. S., “Multidimensional Steric Parameters in the Analysis of Asymmetric Catalytic Reactions”, Nature Chem., vol. 4, pp. 366–374, 2013.
Contact Information
Website: http://www.besslab.com
Email: Elizabeth.Bess@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-1473
Address: 3038A Frederick Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697
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Last updated on 2/19/2025.