Expediting glycosaminoglycan synthesis: expanding frontiers for carbohydrate chemical biology

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This UKRI Fellowship will support my development of a new scientific expertise at Keele University which interfaces chemistry and biology. The overarching goal of the research is to develop an efficient technology to provide biologically important carbohydrates. Specifically, a class of oligosaccharides (where multiple carbohydrate monomers are linked together to form a chain) called heparan sulfates. Heparan sulfates are very important regulators within biology, mediating pathological conditions including cancer, Alzheimer's disease, viral infections such as HIV and HSV and numerous bacterial infections. Therefore, there is a real need to interrogate and fundamentally understand the biological role that heparan sulfate plays in these processes. This will allow scientists to formulate a precise picture of heparan sulfate-mediated structure-activity relationships and initiate the development of new treatments for the pathophysiologies that they control. Chemical synthesis of heparan sulfates is particularly challenging and has traditionally always been completed using solution-phase reactions. Whilst there have been significant achievements in this field, the time and resource required to enable such 'total' syntheses is vast and more efficient methods must be found. This challenge will be addressed by automating heparan sulfate production using a machine-based synthesis and then modifying the materials obtained with enzymes to install specific features that enable their biological function. Such a methodology would revolutionise how quickly we can access these materials, which is absolutely necessary to study and understand their ubiquitous regulatory biology.In undertaking this research, I will adopt a multidisciplinary approach consisting of a fusion between traditional organic chemistry, the evolving field of synthesis automation, and the innovative field of chemoenzymatic modification. This combination will facilitate the development of a faster and greener approach to biologically relevant heparan sulfates and overcome the current challenges presented in the building of biologically important carbohydrates. This is a rapidly evolving worldwide field which is currently underrepresented in UK science. The important materials provided by the technology and knowledge developed during this Fellowship will be used to probe these mechanisms of disease and aid the design and development of new therapeutics against them.