A route to 'bionic glycoproteins' via automated oligosaccharide synthesis

自动化寡糖合成是合成碳水化合物化学和糖生物学领域的潜在革命。然而，在这一领域的进一步进展将需要重新设计现有的溶液相糖基化条件，以挑战连接，如β-甘露糖苷。在这个项目中，我们将利用溶液和自动合成碳水化合物化学的组合来开发适合固相的新糖基化方法。然后，我们将部署这些方法来合成寡糖，这些寡糖将与新的蛋白质修饰方法相结合，以提供用于治疗感染性疾病的“仿生糖蛋白”。

Automated oligosaccharide synthesis is potentially revolutionary for the fields of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry and glycobiology. Yet further progress in this area will require redesign existing solution phase glycosylation conditions for challenging linkages such as beta-mannosides. In this project we will utilise a combination of solution and automated synthetic carbohydrate chemistry to develop new glycosylation methods amenable to the solid phase. We will then deploy these methods to synthesise oligosaccharides which will be combined with novel protein modification methods to afford 'bionic glycoproteins' for the treatment of infectious disease.