The research interests of Zach Armstrong center on the biocatalysts that promote the synthesis and degradation of carbohydrates.

More information about Zach Armstrong

Biography

Zachary Armstrong is an Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden in the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, and he is a member of the Bio-Organic Synthesis division.

Zachary Armstrong was born in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, in 1988. He completed his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia in 2009. This was followed by an Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship supported PhD, co-supervised by Professor Stephen Withers and Professor Steven Hallam at the University of British Columbia. His PhD work focused on the identification of new glycoside hydrolases from metagenomes and the design of new biocatalysts for glycan synthesis. After receiving his PhD in 2018 he crossed the Atlantic to pursue a post-doctoral position at the University of York (York, UK) under the guidance of Professor Gideon Davies. While in York he focused on the structural and mechanistic investigation of biotechnology and disease relevant glycosidases with covalent probes and inhibitors. In 2021, Zachary joined the Bio-Organic Synthesis division of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, University of Leiden. In 2022 he was awarded a Veni Fellowship by the Dutch Research Council for research towards a new class of anti-viral therapeutics. Dr. Armstrong’s research spans the disciplines of Chemistry and Biology with particular focus on carbohydrate modifications and how they relate to both disease states and host-pathogen interactions. His research group focuses on the structural biology of modifying enzymes, developing new tools for profiling carbohydrate modifying enzymes and exploiting these tools to develop new therapeutics.
 

Curriculum Vitae

Personal information

Nationality:   Canadian
Date of birth:   7 February 1988

Education

2018   PhD, The University of British Columbia, Canada, 2018. Thesis title: “Harnessing natural diversity for the discovery of glycoside hydrolases and design of new glycosynthases”
Advisors: Prof. Steven G. Withers and Prof. Stephen. J. Hallam

Current and previous research positions

2021 – now    Assistant Professor, Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, The Netherlands
2018 – 2021   Postdoctoral Research Associate, York Structural Biology Laboratory, University of York, York, England

Grants, awards, recognitions since 2016

2018    NWO Veni Fellowship (k€ 250)

Contribution to teaching and supervision

• Courses for MSc Chemistry and at Leiden University: Biosynthetic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Academic Writing
• Courses for BSc Life Science and Technology and at Leiden University: Bioinformatics, Sustainable Chemical Industry

Co-supervision of 3 PhD students and 1 postdoctoral fellows since 2010.

Other current responsibilities since 2016

• Peer-Review of Articles for: ACS Catalysis, RSC Chemical Science, mSphere, mSystems, Animal Microbiome, PLOS Biology and Scientific Reports
• Grant Review for:  Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) , Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Publication record including five recent representative publications

29 papers with >600 citations, H-index 15 

Full publication record: Google Scholar

• Armstrong Z., Meek R. W.†, Wu L., Blaza J. N., Davies G. J. (2022) Cryo-EM structures of human fucosidase FucA1 reveal insight into substrate recognition and catalysis. Cell Structure, Structure 30 (10), 1443-1451. e5. DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2022.07.001
• de Boer C., Armstrong Z.,  Lit V.A.J, Barash U., Ruijgrok G., Boyango I., Weitzenberg M. M. , Schröder S. P., Sarris A.J.C., Meeuwenoord N.J., Bule P.,  Kayal Y.,  Ilan N., Codée J.D.C., Vlodavsky I., Overkleeft H.S., Davies G.J.,  Wu L. (2022) Mechanism-based heparanase inhibitors reduce cancer metastasis in vivo. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119, 31, e2203167119. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2203167119
• Armstrong Z. , Kuo C-L., Lahav D., Liu B., Johnson R., Beenakker T. J. M., de Boer C., Wong C-S., van Rijssel E. R., Debets M. F., Florea B., Boot R. G., Ovaa H., van der Stelt M., Codée J., Aerts J. M. F. G., Wu L., Overkleeft H., Davies G. (2020) Manno-epi-cyclophellitols Enable Activity-Based Protein Profiling of Human α-Mannosidases and Discovery of New Golgi Mannosidase II Inhibitors. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 142(30) 13021–13029. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.0c03880
• Armstrong Z., Davies G. (2020) Structure and function of Bs164 β-mannosidase from Bacteroides salyersiae the founding member of glycoside hydrolase family GH164. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 295(13) 4316–4326. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.RA119.011591
• Armstrong Z., Mewis K., Liu F., Scofield M., Durno E., Chen H.M., Mehr K., Withers S.G., Hallam S.J., (2018) Metagenomics Reveals Functional Specialization and Novel Polysaccharide Utilization Loci in the Castor canadensis Fecal Microbiome. The ISME Journal, 12 (11), 2757. DOI: 10.1038/s41396-018-0215-9

Presentations including five presentations at international conferences since 2016

• Armstrong Z. (2023) The Cryo-EM structure of human fucosidase FucA1. European Carbohydrate Symposium XXI. Paris, France 
• Armstrong Z. (2023) Structure-Based Analysis of Inhibitors for Human Heparanase. 7th Gratama Conference. Nagasaki, Japan
• Armstrong Z. (2023) Arming Carbohydrates to Treat Disease. Royal Society of Chemistry Carbohydrate Interest Group Spring Symposium. London, UK * Session Keynote
• Armstrong Z. (2019) Manno-Configured epi-Cyclophellitol Aziridine Based Fluorescence Polarization Activity-Based Protein Profiling Identifies New Golgi A-Mannosidase Inhibitors. Eurocarb XX. Leiden, Netherlands. 
• Armstrong Z. (2017) Harnessing Natural Diversity for New Glycosynthases. 2017 Volcano Conference in Chemical Biology. Pack Forest, Washington, USA. American Chemical Society Meeting (April 2017)