II Conference in Glycoscience. Online Lecture Series
February-May, 2025
Organized by the Carbohydrates Group, Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry
Program (PDF)
Register to each individual conference to receive a TEAMS invite for each session
February 6th, 2025. Online lecture, 12h (CET) REGISTER HERE
Sara Bertuzzi. Project Manager at Thermo Fisher in Milan, Italy. Recipient of the PhD thesis Award ‘2022 by the Carbohydrates group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry
Lecture title: Unveiling glycan-lectin interactions in cellular-like environments and at atomic level through NMR.
Sara obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology in 2015 and her Master’s Degree in Industrial Biotechnology in 2018 from the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy. Her Master’s thesis focused on the NMR metabolic profiling of plant extracts for the identification and biological characterization of bioactive compounds. Following this, she joined the Chemical Glycobiology Laboratory as an ERASMUS+ trainee at CIC bioGUNE. In 2018, Sara began her Ph.D. in the same group under the supervision of Jesús Jiménez-Barbero. She defended her thesis, titled «Lectin-Glycan Interactions: New NMR Insights on the Role of Dynamics and Presentation Using State-of-the-Art NMR Methodologies,» in December 2022. After completing her Ph.D., she continued her journey in CIC bioGUNE as a postdoctoral scientist, focusing on the development of therapeutic candidates for cancer immunotherapy. Since February 2024, she has been working as Pharmaceutical Development Services Project Manager at Thermo Fisher in Milan.”
March 6th, 2025. Online lecture, 12h (CET) REGISTER HERE
Sarel Feishman, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Lecture title: Computational design of functionally diverse enzyme repertoires
Sarel Fleishman is a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and chief scientist of Scala Biodesign. His research team develops a computational protein-design methodology to address both fundamental and “real-world” challenges in biochemistry and protein engineering. As a postdoc with the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Prof. David Baker, in Seattle (2007-2011), Sarel developed the first accurate methods for designing protein binders, culminating in the design of broad-specificity influenza blockers. At the Weizmann Institute (2011-), his team developed a reliable and general protein design strategy that has been used to optimise dozens of different classes of enzymes, binders and antibodies — a protein that was designed in the Fleishman lab recently entered phase II clinical trials as a malaria vaccine. Sarel helped found two Israeli biotech companies, Infinite Acres, in the field of agritech, and Scala Biodesign, in the field of biologics and enzyme design. Among Sarel’s academic awards was the Clore Ph.D. Fellowship (2003-2006), the Science Magazine award for a young molecular biologist (2008), a postdoctoral fellowship (2006-2009) and a career-development award (2012-2015) from the Human Frontier Science Program, European Research Council Starting, Consolidator, and Advanced Grants (ongoing), the Alon Fellowship, the Henri Gutwirth Prize, and the Weizmann Scientific Council Award.
April 3th, 2025. Online lecture, 12h (CET) REGISTER HERE
Yasuhiro Kajihara, Osaka University, Japan
Lecture title: to be announced
May 8th, 2025. Online lecture, 12h (CET) REGISTER HERE
Ben Schumann, Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London, UK
Lecture Title: Chemical Precision Tools to Dissect Protein Glycosylation
Ben trained in carbohydrate chemistry with Peter Seeberger at the Max Planck Institute in Potsdam, and in chemical glycobiology with Carolyn Bertozzi at Stanford University. Combined with a background in biochemistry, Ben has learnt to use synthetic tools to probe, understand and manipulate glycans particularly in the secretory pathway of mammalian cells. A breakthrough technology in his lab features the use of engineered glycosyltransferases and biosynthetic enzymes to generate “precision tools” for individual enzymes, glycan sub-types and cells. Ben has received multiple awards including a Chemical Biology Horizon Prize (2021), the Dextra (2023) and Heatley (2024) Awards by the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Biochemical Society Early Career Research Award. He is an EMBO Young Investigator and holds an ERC Starting Grant covered under the UKRI Guarantee Scheme.