There is grant money for the University of Georgia: UGA and George Washington University will share in $10 million from the National Institutes of Health. They will the federal dollars for research into glycoscience, looking to expand , understanding the roles that glycans play in diseases such as cancer.
“It is impossible to do meaningful glycobiology research without including information from many different disciplines, including genomics, proteomics, cell biology, developmental biology and biochemistry, to name just a few,” said William York (pictured), co-principal investigator, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and member of UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center.
Currently, understanding the roles that glycans play in diseases such as cancer involves extensive literature-based research and manual collection of data from disparate databases and websites. GlyGen will simplify this process by providing scientists with a road map that shows key relationships among diverse kinds of information, allowing them to quickly find and retrieve the most current knowledge available and make rapid progress in their glycobiology research.
“Post-translational modifications along with genomics play an important role in health and disease,” said Raja Mazumder, co-principal investigator and associate professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “Using just genomics research for discovery limits scientific advancement—we may not be able to find mutations to explain the prevalence or rate of incidence of a particular disease. For that, we need to understand glycosylation, and we need the resources and tools to support this discipline.”
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