Letter to the Glyco-Forum: International Glycoconjugate Organization Awards—2005
President, International Glycoconjugate Organization Chairman, Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
The International Glycoconjugate Organization (IGO) announces two (unshared) awards for 2005: one to Professor Anne Dell, Imperial College London, and one to Professor Konrad Sandhoff, Universitaet Bonn. The IGO is pleased to provide the following biographies of the awardees.
Professor Anne Dell, FRS, Division of Molecular Biosciences, Imperial College London, UK
|
Professor Anne Dell received a BSc degree in chemistry from the University of Western Australia in 1972 and then moved to the University Chemical Laboratory in Cambridge, UK, for her PhD studies. Under the supervision of Howard Morris, she began her research career exploring the application of mass spectrometry to peptide sequencing. In 1975, she moved to a postdoctoral position in the Biochemistry Department at Imperial College in London, where Morris was establishing a biopolymer mass spectrometry research laboratory. This new facility was equipped with high-field magnet instrumentation for high-mass analysis, which was unique in the world. Collaborations with biochemists and biologists worldwide ensued and led to Dr. Dell beginning her independent research career in the field of glycopolymer analysis by mass spectrometry. She rose through the ranks at Imperial College and was promoted to a Personal Chair in 1991. She was Head of the Biochemistry Department from 1999 to 2001 and now holds a prestigious Professorial Fellowship from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which is allowing her to focus full-time on research and related activities for 5 years.
For over 20 years, Dr. Dell’s laboratory has been at the forefront of the development of ultrahigh sensitivity mass spectrometric procedures coupled with microchemical manipulations for the characterization of complex carbohydrates and glycoconjugates of biological and medical importance. She has devised novel strategies for structurally characterizing heterogeneous mixtures of glycans present in minute quantities in biological matrices and has applied these strategies to a wide range of biological problems through numerous collaborations with research groups around the world.
In the early 1980s, Dr. Dell’s group was the first to apply fast-atom bombardment mass spectrometry (FAB-MS) to glycopolymers, thereby solving a long-standing structural problem in mycobacterial polysaccharide research. Experience gained from this study led to the first precise structural assignments of biologically active oligosaccharides derived from plant cell walls (the so-called oligosaccharins) and to the development of procedures for sequencing highly complex carbohydrates and for locating the many labile functional groups that are an integral part of many glycopolymers. In more recent years, FAB methodology has been supplemented with and surpassed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) and electrospray (ES) technologies and new chemical and enzymatic strategies have been devised to allow an ever-increasing range of structural problems to be addressed.
A highly productive collaboration in the 1980s provided the first rigorous structural information on the polylactosaminoglycan-containing glycoproteins of human erythrocytes and leukocytes. This information was pivotal to rapid progress in defining possible ligands for the selectins when they were cloned toward the end of the 1980s. A complementary study of leukocyte O-glycosylation provided vital information pertaining to the O-glycan biosynthetic pathways operating in these cells and laid the foundations for immunological and biochemical research into the roles of O-linked glycans in the immune system. Exploiting similar strategies to those employed in the aforementioned research, Dr. Dell went on to characterize a wide range of glycoproteins including murine zona pellucida glycoproteins, human uromodulin, the ovarian cancer marker CA125 and a variety of prokaryotic glycoproteins in organisms such as Campylobacter jejuni.
Other research highlights have included the characterization of glycodelin A (GdA), a human endometrial glycoprotein with immunosuppressive and contraceptive activity, and GdS, a differently glycosylated form of glycodelin, which is found in human seminal fluid. Dr. Dell has also made significant contributions to the structural glycobiology of schistosomes and has pioneered the characterization of nematode glycosylation, including the discovery of tyvelose containing lacdiNAc antennae in the immunodominant antigens of Trichinella spiralis, stage-specific novel core fucosylation of Haemonchus contortus N-glycans, and unusual chito-oligomers in glycans from a filarial parasite. In recent years, a major focus of Dr. Dell’s work has been the development of high-sensitivity strategies for defining the glycomes of tissues and cells. These methodologies are being employed in collaborative studies of knockout mice and have been adopted by the Analytical Core of the Consortium for Functional Glycomics in its mouse and human glycomics programs.
Dr. Dell has received the Tate & Lyle and Haworth Medals of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Roy L Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry and was Chair of the Glycobiology Gordon Conference in 2001. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002.
Professor Konrad Sandhoff, Kekule-Institut f. Organische Chemie und Biochemie, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn, Germany
|
Konrad Sandhoff started his work in the laboratory of Horst Jatzkewitz with the analysis of ganglioside storage diseases. The identification of glycosphingolipid storage compounds was followed by the elucidation of their catabolism and of the metabolic blocks at the enzymatic level. These early contributions concern the clarification of molecular defects in Tay–Sachs disease and related inherited storage diseases. Among them are a newly discovered gangliosidosis, now called Sandhoff’s disease, and the first inherited defect of a sphingolipid activator protein (SAP), the GM2 activator in the AB variant of GM2 gangliosidosis. Based on these early findings, his laboratory contributed to the discovery and clarification of so-far undescribed diseases caused by inherited defects of SAPs (Sap-B, Sap-C, and prosaposin deficiencies), the isolation of acid sphingomyelinase and ceramidase, and the clarification of the molecular defects in Niemann–Pick and Farber’s disease.
His team elucidated synthetic and catabolic pathways of sphingolipids and glycosphingolipids and characterized enzymes and activator proteins involved at the protein and the genetic levels including their biosynthesis and intracellular processing. These investigations resulted in the development of new concepts, including the following: (1) Intralysosomal membranes enriched with the anionic lipid (bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate) are the site of membrane digestion. This constitutes a new model of endocytosis. (2) The threshold theory was developed and verified for two diseases. It predicts that the level of residual activity of mutated lysosomal enzymes is critical to the development of different clinical forms of a sphingolipid storage disease (infantile, juvenile, and adult forms). (3) Combinatorial ganglioside biosynthesis: only a small number of membrane-bound glycosyltransferases with broad acceptor specificity produces different ganglioside patterns. This concept was supported by the analysis of knockout mice. (4) A novel type of glycoconjugates has been discovered: during differentiation of keratinocytes, glucosylceramides containing long-chain fatty acids are covalently linked through their 
-hydroxyl group to cellular surface proteins. They turned out to be essential for the development of the water permeability barrier of the skin of land-dwelling animals.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||