People from all over the world (the flags represent the home countries of our staff) investigate in the glyocobiology group the "sweet" side of proteins. Many proteins in the blood and on cell surfaces are glycoproteins with a variety of different sugar structures attached to the amino acid backbone. With modern instrumental methods (e.g. HPLC, ESI and MALDI mass spectrometry) we uncover the mysteries of the very sophisticated GLYCAN STRUCTURES and of the protein backbone. Molecular biology helps to analyse and understand the GENES AND ENZYMES within cells that are responsible for the synthesis of these glycans. The widespread FUNCTIONS of the glycans, e.g. cell-cell interaction during embryonic development, glycosylation of pathogens and of therapeutic proteins are of special interest to us.

The synergy emerging from several cooperations with domestic and foreign scientists (glycobiologists, allergists, plant biotechnologists et al.) and with biotech-companies enables us to perform high quality, transdisciplinary scientific work that offers new challenges every day.

The three senior scientists head groups with slightly different research topics:

Altmann:

Mass spectrometry of biomolecules and analysis of glycoproteins ("Glycoproteomics")

Glyco-Immunology

Glyco-Biotechnology (in cooperation with the IAGZ)

Glyco-Tools (enzyms, standards)

Staudacher:

Glycosyltransferases

Glycosylation in invertebrates

Wilson:

Functional and Medical Glycobiology

Glycobiology of model organisms (C. elegans, D. melanogaster)

Glyco-Molecular Biology

Additionally we use our infrastructure and bio-analytical expertise to provide the scientific community a number of services in the analysis of proteins and their modifications and even more.