Lecture
CBI Lecture: Decoding Glycan-Mediated Interactions in Infection and Immunity
- Date
- Wednesday 29 January 2025
- Time
- Location
-
Gorlaeus Building
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- EM.1.09
It is our great pleasure to announce the CBI-seminar of Prof. Yan Liu from Imperial College London.
Prof. Liu’s work covers the synthesis and application of complex carbohydrates and decoding their interaction with specific carbohydrate receptors in the body (the so-called glycocode). This innovative approach combining synthesis, high-throughput biotechnology and biology, is forming a major contribution in cracking this most complex of biological phenomena.
Abstract
The interactions of glycans with their binding partners, governed by an intricate 'glyco-code', influence many of the key biological processes in all living organisms. As prominent host cell surface molecules, glycans mediate cell adhesion and trigger cell signalling, and serve as attachment sites for microbes playing a critical role in colonization and infection. Glycan microarray technologies, first introduced in 2002 by Professor Ten Feizi and colleagues at Imperial College London (ICL), have revolutionized approaches to the molecular dissection of glycan-protein interactions and gained significant momentum worldwide. The ICL Carbohydrate Microarray Facility, since its foundation in 2012, has become an internationally leading operation, enabling collaborative studies on diverse glycan-mediated interactions involving the broad biomedical community. I will highlight the unique resources and recent technological advances of the glycan array systems within our Facility, along with new discoveries arising from interdisciplinary collaborations that are contributing to the unravelling of glycan-mediated interactions at the host-microbe and immune interfaces.