GLYCOTwinning: Building Networks to Excel in Glycosciences

糖科学是一个多学科的研究领域，专注于聚糖在健康和疾病中的作用。该领域正在全球范围内迅速扩大，推动生物医学科学的创新，成为包括医学在内的现代科学的重要组成部分，并为理解人类疾病和个性化医疗工具提供基础。GLYCOTwinning是一个能力建设网络，其雄心勃勃的目标是为里斯本NOVA大学应用生物分子科学股（UCIBIO-NOVA）的研究提供突破，从化学到微生物学、免疫学和生物医学。为了实现卓越，UCIBIO NOVA需要通过与顶级合作伙伴（IMPERIAL，LUMC和CICbioGUNE）建立联系来实现进一步的协同效应。GLYCOTwinning将i）促进糖科学的卓越和创新; ii）增强研究人员的能力和创造力; iii）加强研究管理和行政技能; iv）提高传播活动; v）提高声誉、研究形象和吸引力。GLYCOTwining带来了尖端科学方法的协同作用和多学科性：聚糖微阵列，先进的电泳，高分辨率质谱和核磁共振，以解码疾病中涉及的聚糖结合蛋白的糖识别。通过GLYCOTwinning，UCIBIO-NOVA将加强其研究能力，扩大其目前的R&D+I概况，从原子和分子水平到细胞背景剖析聚糖-蛋白质相互作用，促进基于聚糖的创新工具，诊断和治疗的开发。此外，GLYCOTwining将其目标整合到一个项目中，该项目探索结直肠癌中人类微生物组的聚糖-蛋白质相互作用，验证GLYCOTwining工具箱，创造新知识，创新并为最广泛的传播和利用开辟新的研究途径，具有长期的科学和社会影响。

Glycoscience is a multidisciplinary research area focusing on the role of glycans in health and disease. The field is expanding rapidly worldwide, driving innovation in biomedical sciences and becoming an essential part of modern science, including medicine, and providing bases for understanding human diseases and tools for personalized medicine. GLYCOTwinning is a capacity-building network with the ambitious goal to provide a breakthrough in the research of the Applied Biomolecular Sciences Unit, NOVA University Lisbon (UCIBIO-NOVA), from chemistry to microbiology, immunology and biomedicine. To achieve excellence, UCIBIO NOVA needs further synergies, to be acquired through networking with top-class partners: IMPERIAL, LUMC and CICbioGUNE. GLYCOTwinning will i) Promote scientific excellence and innovation in Glycoscience; ii) Empower researchers’ capacity and creativity; iii) Strengthen research management and administration skills; iv) Raise dissemination activities; v) Boost reputation, research profile and attractiveness. GLYCOTwinning brings synergy and multidisciplinarity in cutting-edge scientific methodologies: glycan microarrays, advanced electrophoresis, high-resolution mass spectrometry and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, to decode sugar recognition by glycan binding proteins involved in disease. Through GLYCOTwinning, UCIBIO-NOVA will reinforce its research capacity, expanding its current R&D+I profile to dissect glycan-protein interactions, from the atomic and molecular levels to the cellular context, boosting the development of innovative glycan-based tools, diagnosis, and therapies. Furthermore, GLYCOTwinning will integrate its objectives in a project that explores glycan-protein interactions of the human microbiome in colorectal cancer, validating a GLYCOTwinning ToolBox, creating new knowledge, innovation and opening new research avenues for the widest dissemination and exploitation, with long term scientific and societal impact.