Sugars and Post-Translational Modifications are critical biological markers that modulate the properties of Proteins. Our work studies the interplay of proteins, sugars and modifications. This lecture will cover emerging areas in our group in: (a) biomolecule construction with an emphasis on new bond-forming processes compatible with biology & (b) use of chemical probes & modulators of carbohydrate & protein processing events. (i) Synthetic Biology’s development at the start of this century may be compared with Synthetic Organic Chemistry’s expansion at the start of the last; after decades of isolation, identification, analysis and functional confirmation the future logical and free-ranging redesign of biomolecules offers tantalizing opportunities. (ii) ‘Synthetic Biologics’ and their applications: drug delivery; selective protein degradation; nanomolar inhibitors of bacterial interactions; gene delivery vehicles; probes of in vivo function; non-invasive pre-symptopmatic disease diagnosis; targeted high-intensity radioprobes; designed glycoconjugate vaccines. (iii) Chemical Probes and Modulators: Delineation of mechanisms of carbohydrate- and protein-processing systems and their ligands allows not only an understanding of their fundamental role in Biology and Immunology but also the use of molecules to modulate and manipulate such processes, with a strong associated potential for diagnosis, therapy and intervention in Medicine.

Sugars & proteins: Exploring and exploiting sugar chemical biology

255th National Meeting (2018)

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