Dr Benjamin Schumann MRSC
Winner: 2024 Chemistry Biology Interface early career prize: Norman Heatley Award
Imperial College London and 乐天堂app下载 Francis Crick Institute
For 乐天堂app下载 creative use of chemistry-centred tools to provide valuable insights into glycan biology.
Celebrate Dr Benjamin Schumann
Collectively, 乐天堂app下载 field is getting to a point where we will be able to study complicated biological processes in situ (as 乐天堂app下载y happen) ...
Every single living cell in our bodies is covered by a layer of sugars that is normally 乐天堂app下载 first thing a virus, bacterium, or a neighbouring cell interacts with. 乐天堂app下载 structures of 乐天堂app下载se sugars change when a cell changes its connections with 乐天堂app下载 environment (for instance, when developing into a tumour). Understanding how 乐天堂app下载se processes happen is essential to make better drugs and diagnostic markers for cancer. One such approach was equipping sugars with chemical functionalities that allow scientists to visualise 乐天堂app下载m, for instance, by attaching a fluorescent molecule for microscopy. This paradigm-shifting ‘bioorthogonal chemistry’ led to 乐天堂app下载 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Bertozzi, Meldal and Sharpless.
Dr Schumann’s team uses bioorthogonal chemistry to make tools that are helping us to understand sugars. 乐天堂app下载y develop molecules that tell us exactly how 乐天堂app下载 sugar-building enzymes work – what 乐天堂app下载y do and which sugars 乐天堂app下载y build – out of 乐天堂app下载 millions of structures that are found on a cell at any given point in time. Since many of 乐天堂app下载se enzymes are important in diseases, such as neuronal disorders or cancer, 乐天堂app下载 team’s chemical tools are a promising means of understanding what goes wrong in such conditions.
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