Dr. Danny Hsu is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica. During his doctorate study at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, he determined the atomic structure of a lantibiotic, nisin, in complex with Gram-positive bacterial cell wall precursor, Lipid II. He coined the term "pyrophosphate case" to explain how nisin targets Lipid II to achieve its antimicrobial activity, providing a blueprint for future antibiotics developments. During his postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, UK, Danny demonstrated the proof of concept of using solution-state NMR spectroscopy to investigate the co-translational folding of nascent polypeptide chains on the ribosome. His earlier independent research focused on the folding mechanisms and functional implications of topologically knotted proteins. He currently focuses on developing an integrated biophysics and structural biology platform, including cryo-electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and molecular modeling, to investigate the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of glycoproteins, and coronavirus spike proteins, in particular, and how mutations impact on the SAR in the context of glycosylation.

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Dr. Juge has 25-year expertise in the molecular studies of carbohydrate-protein recognition in gut biology and microbiology, and food biotechnology. She is a deputy leader of the Gut Microbes and Health Institute Strategic Programme at the Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB, Norwich, UK) and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. Her previous research at Marseille University (France) and Carlsberg Research Institute (Copenhagen, Denmark) focused on the structure-function relationships of plant and microbial carbohydrate-active enzymes and their potential biotechnological application. Since joining QIB in 2007, she has led a Research Group focusing on the Glycobiology of Host-Microbe interactions in the gut. Currently, her group focuses mainly on defining how gut bacteria adapt to the intestinal mucosal environment and the role of mucin glycans in the crosstalk between the gut bacteria and the host. Their work uncovered novel sialic acid metabolism pathways in gut bacteria, contributing to their fitness in the mucus niche and communication with the host. They are also interested in how cell-surface glycosylation of gut symbionts influences the host immune response. Her Lab is involved in initiatives promoting Glycosciences in Europe, such as Sweet Crosstalk or Glytunes multidisciplinary European Training Networks or CarboMet academic-industry network.

 

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Dr. Debra Mohnen is a Distinguished Research Professor at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia. She studies pectin synthesis, structure, and function with an emphasis on the role of pectin in wall architecture and plant cell growth. She was awarded the Bruce Stone Award in 2008 for pectin synthesis and elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013. Her research on synthesizing pectin glycan backbones, homogalacturonan, and rhamnogalacturonan, led to the discovery of the GAUT and RGGAT families of glycosyltransferases and the finding that pectin is a family of glycan domains in both cell wall heteroglycans and glycoconjugates. Since 2007 part of her research has been directed at improving plant biomass yield, sustainability, and composition for producing biofuel and biomaterials. As Focus Area Lead of Plant Biomass Formation and Modification in the BioEnergy Science Center, she directed a team of researchers aimed at overcoming biomass recalcitrance to deconstruction, and since 2017 she has served as Research Domain Lead for Integrative Analysis and Understanding in the Center for Bioenergy Innovation. Her current focus is understanding the roles of pectin in cell expansion and wall structure.

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Professor Ludger Johannes is Research Director (DRE) at INSERM. He is a member of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German organization of the academically gifted), Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and German Academy of Science — Leopoldina. At Institut Curie, he has been heading since 2001 the Traffic, Signaling, and Delivery Team, member of the excellence initiative Cell(n)Scale. Since January 2014, he has directed the Cellular and Chemical Biology unit. His research aims at establishing fundamental concepts of endocytosis and intracellular trafficking. The Johannes team has discovered the membrane trafficking interface between early endosomes and the Golgi apparatus, and demonstrated that lectin-induced glycolipid reorganization acts as a driving force in clathrin-independent endocytosis (termed the GlycoLipid-Lectin / GL-Lect hypothesis). The studies of the Johannes team have been published in highly visible international journals, including Cell and Nature. Between 2014-2020, he was the holder of an ERC advanced grant. He also aims at exploiting the discoveries of his team for the development of innovative cancer therapy strategies using the B-subunit of Shiga toxin (STxB) as a "pilot" for the delivery of therapeutic compounds to precise intracellular locations of dendritic cells for immunotherapy, and to tumors for targeted therapy.

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Dr. Linda Hsieh-Wilson is a Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She was born in New York City and obtained her B.S. degree magna cum laude in chemistry from Yale University in 1990. In 1996, she received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Peter Schultz. In 1996, she moved to Rockefeller University to study neurobiology with Professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Greengard as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow. Hsieh-Wilson joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 2000, where she became an associate professor of chemistry in 2006 and a full professor in 2010. She was an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2005-2014, and in 2015, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Hsieh-Wilson has pioneered the application of organic chemistry to understand the roles of carbohydrates and protein glycosylation in neurobiology. Her honors include a Beckman Young Investigator Award (2000), Research Corporation Research Innovation Award (2000), Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2003), Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (2006), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2008), Gill Young Investigator Award in Neuroscience (2009), and Horace S. Isbell Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry (2014).

 

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Dr. Heinz Läubli received his M.D. and Ph.D. at the Institute of Physiology, University of Zürich (Switzerland). He is now an Assistant Professor and a Research group leader at the University of Basel and an Attending physician in the Division of Oncology, and Head of Glycobiology Research in the  Department of Biomedicine, at the University Hospital Basel.
Dr. Heinz’s research interests are to improve immunotherapy for cancer patients by using translational in vitro and in vivo tumor models, performing correlative analysis of patients treated with immunotherapy, and conducting early clinical interventional trials. His group has been studying the interaction between siaologlycans and their interaction with Siglec receptors on immune cells. It has demonstrated that this pathway can be targeted to augment T-cell stimulation and tumor control. His research goals also include the improvement of cancer immunotherapy by modifying glycans in the tumor microenvironment and glycans of cellular products for adoptive cell therapies, including genetically modified T cells.
 

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Dr. Vojo Deretic is the department chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and the director of the NIH-funded Autophagy, Inflammation and Metabolism (AIM) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence. The AIM center aims to promote autophagy research nationally and internationally and to develop a cadre of junior faculty along with senior experts in this area to study fundamental mechanisms and how autophagy intersects with a broad spectrum of human disease and health states. He received his undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral education in Belgrade, Paris, and Chicago. Dr. Deretic’s main contributions to science come from studies by his team on the role of autophagy in infection, immunity, and inflammation. Recently, Dr. Deretic’s group developed the concept of a cellular system termed MERIT for coordinated membrane repair, removal, and replacement. This involves recognition of exposed glycoconjugates on damaged membranes, membrane repair, removal of membranes by autophagy, and replacement of membranous organelles through respective biogenesis programs. 

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Alice L. Yu, MD, PhD, is an Academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She is a Distinguished Chair Professor & Deputy Director of the Institute of Stem Cell & Translational Cancer Research at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Professor Emeritus at the University of California in San Diego.  
As a pioneer in cancer immunotherapy, Dr. Yu has taken an anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody (Dinutuximab) from preclinical to phase III clinical trial, culminating in its FDA approval for the treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma in 2015. This marks the first immunotherapeutic agent to target glycolipids worldwide. She has continued to improve the efficacy of anti-GD2 immunotherapy through international collaboration. Her group has demonstrated the adverse impact of Globo H expression on the outcome of patients with hepatoma, cholangiocarcinoma, and gallbladder cancer. She also uncovered the roles of Globo H in cancer as an immune checkpoint molecule and angiogenic factor, providing rationales for the ongoing development of Globo H-targeted immunotherapeutics. 
She has received many awards, including the Pediatric Oncology Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in 2020, Excellence in Technology Transfer Award from Federal Laboratory Consortium (USA) in 2016, The 55th Academic Award from the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), Year 2000 "Key to Life" Award, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (USA), etc.

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Dr. Anja Münster-Kühnel studied Biology and Chemistry in a Teacher Education Programme at the University of Hannover in Germany. After the First State Examination in Biology and Chemistry, she received her Ph.D. at Hannover Medical School (MHH) in the Department of Microbiology by cloning the murine enzyme CMP-sialic acid synthase, an essential enzyme in the biosynthesis of sialoglycoconjugates. As a group leader at the Institute of Clinical Biochemistry, MHH, she continued the molecular characterization of this enzyme and the investigation of its nuclear localization. Further, sialylation-deficient constitutive and conditional mouse models have been generated to unravel the biological function of sialoglycoconjugates in the development and immune system, especially for kidney development and operation. Recently she started to investigate novel functions of polysialic acid beyond the nervous system.

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Dr. Hamed Jafar-Nejad received his M.D. from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and learned molecular biology techniques at a research institute in Iran. After one year at the University of Ottawa, he moved to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He received his postdoctoral training in Notch signaling and Drosophila neurogenesis with Dr. Hugo Bellen. In December 2006, he started his research group, first at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston and later at Baylor, where they continued their studies on the role of glycosylation and deglycosylation in animal development. In recent years, the Jafar-Nejad laboratory has devoted significant effort to understanding the function of human rare disease genes in animal development. These collaborative studies have led to the identification of Poglut1 as a dominant genetic suppressor of the liver phenotypes in a mouse model for Alagille syndrome, the identification of a new form of muscular dystrophy caused by recessive mutations in POGLUT1, and the discovery of several pathways downstream of the deglycosylation enzyme N-glycanase 1 (NGLY1), mutations in which cause a multi-system developmental disorder. This work will likely provide novel insight into how glycans regulate animal development and might help establish new therapeutic approaches for these diseases.

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Associate Professor Morten Thaysen-Andersen heads the Analytical Glycoimmunology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Additionally, he was recently recruited as Visiting Professor at Nagoya University, Japan, to set up a Glycoproteomics lab at the prestigious Institute for Glyco-core Research (iGCORE). Across the two laboratories, his glycobiology-focused research program aims to advance our understanding of the human innate immune system and immune-related diseases, including microbial infections, inflammation, and cancer. His team develops and applies novel glycomics and glycoproteomics technologies using advanced mass spectrometry while drawing on analytical tools in protein and carbohydrate chemistry and methods in immunology, structural biology, microbiology, and molecular and cell biology to unravel fundamental glycobiological processes within the innate immune system.
 

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