Official website for the Frantz Lab at Washington University in St. Louis — advancing translational chemistry and drug discovery through innovative synthetic methods, high-throughput screening, and strategic industry partnerships.
Live site: deflab-website.pages.dev
The Frantz Lab, led by Prof. Doug Frantz, is part of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics at WashU Medicine. Research focuses on:
- Drug Discovery & Medicinal Chemistry — taccalonolide-based therapeutics for triple-negative breast cancer
- Synthetic Methods & Catalysis — Pd-catalyzed allene synthesis, metal-catalyzed borylation, late-stage functionalization
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Hugo | Static site generator |
| HugoBlox | Theme framework |
| Tailwind CSS v4 | Styling |
| Cloudflare Pages | Hosting & deployment |
- Hugo Extended ≥ 0.154.2 (install)
- Go (install) — required for Hugo modules
- Node.js ≥ 18.0.0 (install)
# Install Hugo modules
hugo mod get -u && hugo mod tidy
# Install Node dependencies (for Tailwind CSS)
npm install
# Start dev server with live reload
hugo serverThe site will be available at http://localhost:1313.
hugoOutput goes to public/. The Cloudflare Pages deployment runs this automatically on push to main.
deflab-website/
├── config/_default/
│ ├── hugo.yaml # Hugo config (baseURL, modules)
│ ├── params.yaml # Site identity, theme colors, SEO
│ ├── menus.yaml # Navigation menu items
│ └── module.yaml # Hugo module mounts
├── content/
│ ├── home/ # Homepage section blocks
│ ├── people/ # Lab member profiles
│ ├── research/ # Research area pages
│ ├── publication/ # Publications list
│ └── group-life/ # Photo albums (conferences, outings, etc.)
├── layouts/
│ ├── home.html # Custom homepage layout
│ └── _partials/
│ ├── components/
│ │ ├── headers/navbar.html # Custom navbar
│ │ └── footers/minimal.html # Custom footer
│ └── hooks/ # Hugo hook partials
├── static/
│ └── images/
│ ├── WashU/ # Institutional logos
│ └── publications/ # Publication cover images
├── assets/
│ └── media/ # Site icon, logo assets for Hugo pipeline
└── themes/hugoblox-kit/ # Theme submodule
Create a new file in content/people/:
hugo new people/firstname-lastname.mdEdit the front matter to set name, role, bio, and photo. Photos go in static/images/.
The publications list lives at content/publication/publications-list.md. Add new entries as numbered list items following the existing citation format.
Research area pages are in content/research/. Each .md file becomes a page with its own URL.
Photo album pages live in content/group-life/. Each album is a .md file with an image gallery block.
Key settings in config/_default/params.yaml:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
identity.name |
Site name shown in navbar and title |
identity.organization |
Legal entity for copyright |
identity.tagline |
Short tagline |
theme.colors.primary |
WashU Red #BA0C2F |
theme.colors.secondary |
WashU Dark Gray #252525 |
header.cta |
Contact button in navbar |
The HugoBlox kit theme is included as a Git submodule at themes/hugoblox-kit/.
# Update theme to latest
git submodule update --remote themes/hugoblox-kitCustom layout overrides in the top-level layouts/ directory take precedence over theme defaults.
The site deploys automatically via Cloudflare Pages on every push to main. No manual steps needed.
To preview a branch deployment, push to any non-main branch — Cloudflare Pages will generate a preview URL.