Chemical and chemoenzymatic syntheses of carbohydrates for therapeutic evalutions and immunological studies

如今，在加拿大很难遇到一个没有因癌症而失去亲人的人。在上个世纪，曾经是一种罕见疾病的癌症迅速发展，成为仅次于心脏病的第二大常见死因。目前，加拿大27%的男性和23%的女性死于癌症，统计数据预测，如今加拿大人患癌症的风险要高得多；每2.4名男性和2.7名女性中就有一人会在一生中患上癌症。碳水化合物是帮助我们理解癌症和传染病的起源、发展和增殖的关键，因为它们是在各种细胞间通信和信号转导中起核心作用的主要介质分子。研究蛋白质-碳水化合物，碳水化合物-碳水化合物的相互作用可以使我们设计和合成有效的治疗方法，可以针对这些疾病所依赖的关键途径。

It is hard nowadays to meet someone living in Canada who has not lost someone close to them from cancer. During last century, once a rare disease, cancer has quickly evolved and become the second most common cause of mortality, next to heart disease. Cancer now kills 27% of men and 23% of women in Canada, and statistics has predicted a much higher risk to acquire cancer for today's Canadian population; one in every 2.4 males versus one in every 2.7 females will develop cancer in their lifetime. Carbohydrates hold the key in helping us understanding the origin, development and proliferation of cancer as well as infectious disease as they are primary mediator molecules playing central roles in all sorts of cell-cell communication and signal transduction. Studying protein-carbohydrate, carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions can enable us to design and synthesize effective therapeutics that can target the crucial pathways these diseases rely on.