Glycomics by High-throughput Integrated Technologies

Protein glycosylation is a post-translational phenomenon that is involved in most physiological and disease processes including cancer. Most of the known cancer-associated glycobiomarkers were discovered individually using liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy. Though valuable, there is room for improvement in these approaches for the discovery phase. There is also a critical need for innovative, rapid, and high-throughput (HTP) technologies that will translate the discovery of cancer-associated glycobiomarkers from basic science to clinical application.
The GlycoHIT consortium brings a highly experienced, innovative and interdisciplinary team of researchers from Europe, China and USA representing academia, industry and clinical fields to significantly enhance some of the existing glycoanalytical technologies and to advance novel HTP glycoanalytical technologies beyond current state of the art.

- Microchip technology and novel partitioning methods will be exploited for nanoscale HTP separations of serum glycoproteins for analysis by HPLC or LC?MS.
- In parallel, lectin array technology will be radically improved by the innovative use of recombinant human lectins and lectin mimics derived by screening large phage displayed combinatorial libraries.
- Aptamer libraries will be exploited for identification of lectin mimics and development of a glycosignature platform
- Compatibility of the lectin/lectin mimic array technologies with novel label-free biosensors will be explored.

Newly-developed technologies will be validated by analysis of serum samples from a variety of cancer patient cohorts and will be supported throughout by experimental interaction analysis, complex structural modelling and informatics.

Effective project management, commercially-aware intellectual property management and targeted dissemination activities supplement the core science and ensure maximum impact for the project.