2018 3M/Ronald A. Mitsch Lecture in Chemistry
Illuminating Sugars, the "Dark Matter" of the Cell Surface
Guest Lecturer
Carolyn R. Bertozzi
Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and professor of chemical and systems biology and radiology, Stanford University; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Friday, April 20 at 12:45 p.m.
Sundin Music Hall, 1531 Hewitt Avenue,
Saint Paul, Minnesota
All cells are coated with sugars, but their precise roles in biology remain rather mysterious. This is in part due to the fact that the tools of biology are not well suited to studying sugars—rather, they were invented with proteins and nucleic acids, the other major cellular biopolymers, in mind. In recent years, chemists have joined the challenge of studying sugars by inventing tools that enable molecular imaging and profiling of sugars on live cells and organisms. We now have a better appreciation of the roles sugars play in such diverse processes as viral and bacterial infection and cancer. Glycobiology has proven to be a rich field for chemists seeking to impact biology and medicine.
Carolyn Bertozzi is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and professor of chemical and systems biology and radiology (by courtesy) at Stanford University and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1988 and her PhD in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1993. After completing postdoctoral work at UC San Francisco in the field of cellular immunology, she joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1996. In June 2015, she joined the faculty at Stanford University, coincident with the launch of Stanford's ChEM-H institute.
Bertozzi's research interests span the disciplines of chemistry and biology, with an emphasis on studies of cell surface glycosylation pertinent to disease states. Her lab focuses on profiling changes in cell surface glycosylation associated with cancer, inflammation, and bacterial infection and exploiting this information for development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, most recently in the area of immuno-oncology. She has been recognized with many honors and awards for her research accomplishments. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, among many others.