Glycobiology is a relatively new science. The term did not even exist prior to 1988, when the famous Oxford University biochemist Raymond Dwek first used it. He wanted to highlight the need to relate sugars back to basic biology rather than looking at them out of context. He wanted people to think about the role of that sugar as well as the structure of that sugar. Thank goodness he took that approach because today many exciting discoveries are coming out of doing just that. Raymond Dwek was right to assume that sugars have many functional roles to play in nature. Understanding those roles will in time lead to treatment of many serious diseases.
Where Glycobiology Is Used
Glycobiology is not an isolated science; it is part of so many different areas of research. You will see it being used in research into the immune system, reproductive health, the treatment and prevention of viruses and many other areas of scientific research.
The Challenges Glycobiology Face
There are many challenges for Glycobiology, but by far the biggest one is the sheer numbers of sugars that exist in nature. There are so many of them and they all need to be analysed and understood at some point. However, because the sugars involved are such complex carbohydrates isolating them or synthesising them is a difficult and time consuming process.
Luckily, for the past decade a group of Glycobiologists have been honing their skills to find the quickest way to carry out this often complex research. Their efforts are paying off and slowly, but surely faster research techniques are becoming available. This includes automated carbohydrate synthesis, and improved mass spectrometry.
As well as using automated methods to speed up the synthesis of carbohydrates for study Glycobiologists are turning to nature for help. They are using naturally occurring enzymes to synthesis some too.
However, despite all of this Glycobiology is still faced with a big mountain to climb. This is because the methods being developed cannot, yet, synthesise every carbohydrate that exists. At some point those difficult to replicate carbohydrates will need to be studied too, so must eventually be replicated.
Iduron is at the forefront of Glycobiology. Their focus is on anionic polysaccharides called Glycosaminoglycans (GAGS) an area they have been very successful in.