Aaron Wright, Ph.D.
Schofield Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science, Professor Baylor University
- Waco TX
Research group investigates host-microbiome-environment interactions with functional resolution at the molecular scale
Media
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
NIH Director's Transformative Award
2024
Education
George Fox University
B.S.
Chemistry
2001
The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D.
Organic Chemistry
2006
Media Appearances
Baylor University and partners win up to $28M to create antibiotic alternatives
Dallas News online
2025-10-31
Aaron Wright, a professor at Baylor University, will help zero in on promising viral candidates. His lab maps the proteins and small molecules that mark harmful shifts in the microbiome. Wright and scientists from New York received $5.6 million in 2024 from the National Institutes of Health to advance personalized fecal microbiome transplants for gut conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Baylor Partners on Up to $28M Initiative to Build Precision Phage Platform for Promoting Public Health
Baylor University online
2025-10-16
Aaron Wright, Ph.D., The Schofield Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science in Baylor’s Department of Biology, will lead Baylor’s contributions to the larger team, supplying expertise in microbes and chemical biology to the broader effort.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be a part of projects that advance health-based research,” Wright said. “Rarely do you get to be on a project where you can say, ‘After five years, we can offer a tangible product for human health.’ Promoting health is a priority at Baylor and in our Department of Biology. This initiative gives us a tremendous opportunity to help others.”
Professor’s gut microbiome research advances IBS treatment breakthroughs
Baylor Lariat online
2024-11-11
“Our newest NIH grant, the Transformative Research Award, provides a unique opportunity to try to develop novel chemical biology approaches that will allow us to create personalized medicines,” Wright said.
Baylor scientist earns NIH grant for personalized microbiome treatments
News-Medical.Net online
2024-10-09
Wright, a nationally recognized microbiome researcher and chemical biologist who serves as The Schofield Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science in Baylor's Department of Biology, will partner on the project with colleagues from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
"The NIH Director's Transformative Award is an exciting award that we're grateful to receive," Wright said.
Articles
Discovery of active mouse, plant and fungal cytochrome P450s in endogenous proteomes and upon expression in planta
Scientific Reports2024
Eukaryotes produce a large number of cytochrome P450s that mediate the synthesis and degradation of diverse endogenous and exogenous metabolites. Yet, most of these P450s are uncharacterized and global tools to study these challenging, membrane-resident enzymes remain to be exploited. Here, we applied activity profiling of plant, mouse and fungal P450s with chemical probes that become reactive when oxidized by P450 enzymes. Identification by mass spectrometry revealed labeling of a wide range of active P450s, including six plant P450s, 40 mouse P450s and 13 P450s of the fungal wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici.
Discovery of non-opioid receptor protein targets of fentanyl and remifentanil by affinity-based protein profiling in diverse animal model and human tissues
bioRxiv2025
Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and related analogs have been widely used for pain management. However, their negative side effects, including respiratory depression and high potential for addiction, underscore the need for a deeper understanding of fentanyl’s interactions with proteins throughout the human body. Fentanyl analogs bind and activate opioid receptors in the central and peripheral nervous systems, triggering numerous downstream signaling pathways. Increasingly, fentanyl has been shown to interact with non-opioid receptors, and elucidation of these non-canonical fentanyl-protein interactions may provide insights into the mechanisms contributing to fentanyl’s adverse effects and illuminate novel countermeasure strategies.
High-Fiber Diet Exacerbates DSS-Induced Murine Colitis Due to Shifts in Microbial Metabolism of Complex Carbohydrates
Current Developments in Nutrition2025
Objectives: To functionally profile the gut microbial metabolism of complex carbohydrates in ulcerative colitis (UC) and its effects on the host. We hypothesized that administration of high-fiber diet during UC would exacerbate colitis by disturbing the gut microbial utilization of complex carbohydrates in highly inflamed gut environment.
An Integral Activity-Based Protein Profiling Method for Higher Throughput Determination of Protein Target Sensitivity to Small Molecules
ACS Chemical Biology2025
Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is a chemoproteomic technique that uses small molecule probes to label active enzymes selectively and covalently in complex proteomes. Competitive ABPP, which involves treatment of the active proteome with an analyte of interest, is especially powerful for profiling how small molecules impact specific protein activities. Advances in higher throughput workflows have made it possible to generate extensive competitive ABPP data across diverse biological samples, making this approach highly appealing for characterizing shared and unique proteins affected by perturbations such as drug or chemical exposures.
Comprehensive Identification of β-Lactam Antibiotic Polypharmacology in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
ACS Infectious Diseases2025
Infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) cause tuberculosis (TB), which requires at least 6 months of treatment with multiple antibiotics. There is emergent interest in using β-lactam antibiotics to improve treatment outcomes for patients. These drugs target cell wall biosynthesis, but a comprehensive list of enzymes inhibited by β-lactams in Mtb is lacking. In the current study, we sought to identify and characterize Mtb enzymes inhibited by β-lactam antibiotics using physiological conditions representative of both acute and chronic TB disease. We used new activity-based probes based on the β-lactam antibiotic meropenem due to its approval by the World Health Organization for TB treatment.
