We take chemical-biology approaches to pursue new anti-infective strategies. Since 2005, my group has developed approaches to block the indispensable MEP pathway for isoprenoid biosynthesis and vitamin biosynthesis in pathogens. DXP synthase has emerged from this work as a particularly promising target in bacterial metabolism that we are rigorously investigating. We have pioneered studies to understand the mechanism underlying the unique activity of DXP synthase, and developed the first selective probes of DXP synthase that are currently enabling key advances toward the understanding this target function in the context of infection, and toward in vivo target validation. Our work on anti-infective drug targets is complemented by our research focused on developing prodrug strategies to treat and prevent infectious disease, including bacterial infection and HIV. Projects in this area focus on strategies to overcome barriers of low cell permeability of clinical agents, or chemical probes we develop to study antibacterial targets, including DXP synthase. We are also developing drug delivery strategies for the NRTI antiretroviral class, toward development of injectable or implantable sustained release antiretroviral drug regimens.