Gibson Group News

We are part of a large consortium of UK Universities and companies which has been awarded > £3.5 Million over 5 years to develop new methods to obtain speciality glycans (carbohydrates) using a combination of chemistry and enzymes, and translate these to applications. The GibsonGroup is actively involved in this project (details below) and a PDRA will be based at Warwick during this time.

This is funded by Innovate UK, along with BBSRC and EPSRC.

Chemo-enzymatic Synthesis of Speciality Glycans

The vision of the project centres around the translation of traditional and novel methodologies to develop sustainable and versatile platforms for the industrial production of glycans on scale. We will demonstrate the technology by targeting a set of novel glycan materials that are anticipated to have significant transformational potential in human health and disease in diagnostics and glycoengineering applications. This project requires an integrated approach featuring: 1) synthetic chemistry (unnatural building blocks) 2) biocatalysis (enzymatic synthesis of larger glycans) 3) showcasing glycan potential in diagnostics (glycoarray based platforms). The significant anticipated progression of both biocatalysis and glycoarray technologies will reduce commercialisation barriers both in terms of commercial glycan production and 'first in the market' glycan array companies