Rate My Professor F Outten

F. Wayne Outten is the Guy F. Lipscomb Sr. Professor of Biochemistry, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, and Associate Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. He earned a B.S. in Biology with honors from the College of William and Mary in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Northwestern University in 2001 under the advisement of Dr. Thomas V. O’Halloran. Following his doctoral studies, Outten completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch at the National Institutes of Health from 2001 to 2005 under Dr. Gisela Storz. He joined the University of South Carolina faculty in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010, full Professor in 2011, and appointed to the Guy F. Lipscomb Sr. Professorship in 2012.

Outten's research centers on microbial metal metabolism, bioinorganic chemistry, microbial physiology, and microbial genetics, with a focus on the biochemical mechanisms of Fe-S cluster assembly, transition metal acquisition, trafficking, storage systems, and their regulation during environmental stresses such as iron starvation and oxidative stress. His laboratory employs Escherichia coli as a model organism to study the Suf pathway for Fe-S cluster biogenesis under harsh conditions. He has received the Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar Award (2008-2010), Pharmacology Research Associate (PRAT) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2002-2004), and Ada B. Thomas Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award (2012). Key publications include "Direct observation of intermediates in the SufS cysteine desulfurase reaction reveals functional roles of conserved active-site residues" (J. Biol. Chem., 2019, with M. Blahut et al.), "Nickel exposure reduces enterobactin production in Escherichia coli" (MicrobiologyOpen, 2019, with C.L. Washington-Hughes et al.), "A suf operon requirement for Fe-S cluster assembly during iron starvation in E. coli" (Mol. Microbiol., 2004), and "The SufE protein and the SufBCD complex enhance SufS cysteine desulfurase activity as part of a sulfur transfer pathway for Fe-S cluster assembly in E. coli" (J. Biol. Chem., 2003). Outten has secured sustained funding from the National Institutes of Health, including R01 GM081706 (2007-2012) and R01 GM112919 (2015-2024), as well as NSF grants.