Office: 204 TBL
Phone: (413) 597-2119
E-mail: wdewitt@williams.edu
Area of Interest: Cell biology
Antibiotics in amphibian skin.
In the last several years, potent antibiotic compounds have been isolated from the ventral skin of the African clawed toad, Xenopus laevis. The antibiotics appear to constitute a previously unrecognized antimicrobial host– defense system; Xenopus, unlike most frogs and toads, is exclusively aquatic, and it has been postulated that the aquatic environment, teeming with pathogenic microbes, requires such a defense system. We have detected similar skin antibiotics in the bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) and are in the process of extracting and isolating them. We are also interested in screening other amphibia in order to determine if protective antibiotics are widespread in the Amphibia.