Carbohydrates are ubiquitous to all living organisms serving key biological functions in normal and disease processes. While nearly all aspects of mammalian biology are affected by glycan-mediated events, the complexity of carbohydrates, amplified by the presence of stereo-isomers, anomeric configurations, branched chains, and modifications has rendered study of their biological roles intractable to most researchers. Lack of approaches to produce affordable, well-characterized glycans and glycoconjugates spanning the chemical diversity of mammalian and microbial glycomes is a roadblock to understanding their functions.  Chemical methods exist to synthesize only a small portion of biomedically relevant glycans. These methods are generally complex requiring sophisticated synthetic expertise and produce limited quantities of glycans/glycoconjugates at considerable cost. This has resulted in a paucity of glycan standards (including sets of isomers), and hampered the development of tools for decipher their biological function(s). Ideally, one would like to be able to efficiently and cost effectively synthesize all biomedically relevant mammalian and microbial glycomes at will, and to scale up synthesis when appropriate. To this end, the NIH Common Fund <i>Accelerating Translation of Glycoscience: Integration and Accessibility Program </i>is focused on creating accessible and affordable new methods, tools, and technologies for the study of carbohydrates such that biomedical researchers can significantly advance our understanding of the roles of these complex molecules in health and disease. The program supports three major initiatives: <u>development of methods and technologies for synthesis of biomedically relevant carbohydrates</u>; development of accessible tools for probing and analyzing carbohydrates and their interaction partners; and development of data integration and analysis tools. The synthetic initiative is focused on the development of new innovative methods (catalytic, chemical, and chemo-enzymatic), and technologies to facilitate the rapid, robust, and affordable synthesis, and/or functionalization of biomedically relevant glycans and glycoconjugates. To date 18 awards for synthesis have been made and awardees work as a team.  A major focus of this team is the development of new robust, stereo-selective catalytic methods. Development of these methods are crucial for the program’s success and will ultimately facilitate the automation of carbohydrate synthesis.

NIH glycoscience program: Developing new facile methods for synthesis of biomedically relevant carbohydrates

255th National Meeting (2018)

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