The Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry 2008
2 Secretary, International Carbohydrate Organization, Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research, Department of Bio-Organic Chemistry, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, NL-3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: j.p.kamerling{at}uu.nl
The International Carbohydrate Organization is pleased to announce that the Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for 2008 has been jointly awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi of the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA and Yukishige Ito of RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), Saitama, Japan.
In 1984, the International Carbohydrate Organization established the award in honor of Professor Roy L. Whistler to recognize scientists "who have made contributions of excellence in carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry and with promise of continuing significant contributions." The award is recognized with a plaque, a cheque for US$10,000, and an invitation to co-present the opening lecture at the 24th International Carbohydrate Symposium to be held in Oslo 2008.
This year, the decision was a particularly difficult one; not only were the candidates of the highest order, but they also represented most diverse fields of carbohydrate research. The decision to jointly award reflects the Whistler Award Committee's decision to honor not only two outstanding candidates, but also to acknowledge the importance of different aspects of the spectrum of their research interests ranging from synthesis to biomedicinal applications.
Carolyn Bertozzi is the leader in applying organic chemistry in living systems most specifically for the study of glycosylation. To this end she has designed elegant chemical methods to introduce labeled unnatural compounds into the cellular biosynthetic machinery, thereby allowing for a wide range of studies to monitor changes in glycosylation in tissues and cells. Her cell-surface engineering makes an essential contribution to biomedicine with a broad impact at the chemistry to biology interface.
Yukishige Ito's contributions cover the chemical synthesis of glycoconjugates for biological investigations, including novel
synthetic methods development. He has made distinguished contributions in many areas; of exceptional note are methods developed for alpha-sialoside and beta-mannoside linkages and the synthesis of some enormously complex molecules. His fundamental synthetic work on all aspects of large N-glycans makes it possible to focus in a very systematic way on the processing and quality control of glycoproteins in the cell, thereby clarifying key enzymes and chaperones at the molecular level.
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