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Glycomics
is a growing field of research emerging in the
wake of genomics and proteomics. New technologies
that have led to the advancement of these two
other areas have been slow to develop in the
area of glycomics owing largely to the immense
complexity of carbohydrates, particularly when
compared to nucleotides and peptides, and the
synthetic difficulties that arise when dealing
with such complexity. New technological advances
are needed to unlock this field of research.
Perhaps the most important is the development
of new methods that would allow for the synthesis
of large libraries of complex natural and unnatural
carbohydrates in a facile, automated fashion.
We plan to utilize the maskless array synthesizer
(MAS) technology, previously developed in our
labs for the synthesis of DNA chips, to develop
the first in situ synthesis of carbohydrate
microarrays. Such arrays would consist of thousands
of unique oligosaccharides on a single glass
slide surface. In addition to becoming a valuable
synthetic tool, this technology would also enable
researchers to perform a wide range of binding
studies utilizing, for example, proteins, RNA,
antibodies and whole cells.
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