• Date : 14th of December 2015

• Location : Poitiers University, France

• Address : Amphi PBS, Pôle biologie santé, 1 rue George Bonnet, Poitiers

• Speakers :

Mikael BOLS, University of Copenhagen (Danemark) – Bruno LINCLAU, University of Southampton (UK) – Jeroen CODEE, University of Leiden (Netherlands) – Carme ROVIRA, University of Barcelona (Spain)  – David BONNAFFÉ, University of Paris-Saclay – Matthieu SOLLOGOUB, Sorbonne University, Paris – Chrystel LOPIN-BON University of Orléans – Boris VAUZEILLES, ICSN, Gif/Yvette.

Pierre SINAŸ (Chairman) : Sorbonne University, Paris – Membre de l’Académie des Sciences.

• Glycoscience, the science dealing with carbohydrates, is expanding continuously at the fundamental and applied level and its societal impact is multiple ranging from medicine to materials and energy. Advances in this field depend critically on the availability of well-defined, pure natural and synthetic carbohydrates. Their accessibility greatly relies on glycosylation, the central reaction in glycochemistry.

Albeit centenary, this chemical reaction is still of high interest to the scientific community. Indeed, some crucial mechanistic details are still missing and a universal glycosylation methodology applicable to any sugar has still to be discovered. Many research groups around the world are currently working on this subject in order to better understand and possibly master this reaction at the chemical and enzymatic level.

This one-day symposium aims at gathering some of the best French and European experts in the field. The speakers will present their last results, thus illustrating the numerous elegant approaches that have been developed to solve the current challenges associated with the glycosylation reaction. A poster session will also take place during the meeting to encourage PhD students and post-docs to present their work.

You are all welcome to attempt this event dedicated to a large audience.

The organizing committee

Bruno Linclau graduated from the University of Ghent, Belgium in 1992. His undergraduate thesis was carried out at Leicester University as an ERASMUS exchange student with Dr P. R. Jenkins during his final year. Back in Ghent, he joined the group of Pr. M. Vandewalle for his PhD (1992-1996, funded by the Belgian « National Fund of Scientific Research »), where he completed the total synthesis of several Vitamin D analogues. This was followed by a postdoctoral stay with Pr. D. P. Curran in Pittsburgh PA (USA) (1997-1999), with a fellowship from the « Belgian American Educational Foundation » and from the University of Pittsburgh. There he worked on fluorous chemistry applications in combinatorial chemistry and developed a fluorous scavenger approach illustrated with automated solution phase parallel synthesis of urea libraries. He joined the Chemistry at Southampton University as a lecturer in August 1999, followed by a promotion to Senior Lecturer in 2005, to Reader in 2013, and to Professor in 2015. He is Head of the Organic Chemistry Section. His current research projects involve organofluorine chemistry, with a focus on investigating how fluorination of organic compounds can modify their physical properties, and a particular focus on fluorinated carbohydrates.

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/chemistry/about/staff/linclau.page

Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d’Orsay (France)

Laboratoire de Chimie Organique Multifonctionnelle

http://www.icmmo.u-psud.fr/Labos/LGMM/COM/cv/DB1.php

Institut de Chimie Organique et Analytique – Orléans (France)

Equipe Glycochimie et Protéoglycanes

http://www.icoa.fr/fr/lopin

Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles – Gif/Yvette (France)

Département de Chemical Biology

http://www.icmmo.u-psud.fr/Labos/LGMM/LSB/cv/BV1.php

Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6 (France)

Équipe Glycochimie Organique Biologique et Supramoléculaire (GOBS)

http://www.ipcm.fr/sollogoub-matthieu

Carme Rovira is an ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona (UB, Dept. Química Orgànica). She did part of her PhD research in USA (North Carolina State University and Southern Illinois University) and obtained her PhD degree in Chemistry from the UB in 1995, working with J. J. Novoa. Afterwards, she spent three years (1996-1998) as postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute (Stuttgart, Germany), working with M. Parrinello. In 2002 she obtained a Ramón y Cajal position and moved to the Parc Científic de Barcelona and in 2003 she received an award from the Generalitat de Catalunya (« Distinció de la Generalitat per la promoció de la recerca universitaria », young scientist category). In 2007 she was appointed ICREA Research Professor and in 2012 she moved to the Department of Chemistry of the UB. Dr. Rovira is the author of more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the fields of Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Biology. In the last few years, her research has been focused on hemeproteins (peroxidases and catalases) and carbohydrate-active enzymes.

https://www.icrea.cat/Web/ScientificStaff/Carme-Rovira-Virgili-411

Jeroen Codée was born in 1975, studied chemistry at Leiden University, where he received his masters degree in synthetic organic chemistry in 1999. He continued his education as a PhD student at Leiden University, under the guidance of Jacques van Boom and Stan van Boeckel and elaborated the subject of oligosaccharide synthesis with a focus on thioglycosides and glycosaminoglycans. He defended his thesis in 2004, and was then a postdoctoral fellow at the ETH Zürich with Pr. Peter Seeberger. He was then appointed as Assistant professor at Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Netherlands. His research interests include glycobiology, carbohydrate chemistry and automated synthesis.

http://biosyn.lic.leidenuniv.nl/people/codee

Mikael Bols was born in 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He received his M.Sc. (1985) and Ph.D. (1988) from the Technical University of Denmark under the supervision of Pr. Inge Lundt. After a postdoctoral stay in 1988-1989 at Queen’s University, Canada, with Pr. Walter Szarek, he joined Leo Pharmaceutical Products, where he was a research chemist from 1989 to 1991. He then returned to an assistant professorship at the Technical University of Denmark. In 1994 he did a sabbatical stay at Columbia University in Pr. Gilbert Stork’s group. In 1995 he went to Aarhus University, where in 2000 he became a full professor. Finally, in 2007 he assumed his present position as head of the chemistry department at the University of Copenhagen. His research interests are medicinal chemistry, carbohydrates, and artificial enzymes.

http://research.ku.dk/search/?pure=en/persons/201563

Amphi PBS – Pôle Biologie Santé

Bat. B36, 1 rue George Bonnet, Poitiers