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News

Current News

Who participated?
A final list of all participants has been uploaded (21.12.2015).

Reports available
Final reports from scientific meetings and the training schools can be downloaded from the events page. The most recent addition is the report from the finaly meeting in Antalya/Turkey.

Publication list updated
More than 130 publications have been published by members of the COST CM 1102 action so far!

 

Older News (Archive)

Final COST CM 1102 meeting in Antalya/Turkey - 29-30 Oct 2015
The COST action CM 1102 is coming to its end. We will have the last meeting in Antalya and hosted by Mustafa O. Guler. The final programme including abstracts has been just released. Detailed information can be found under the EVENTS page.

Venue: The Rixos Downtown Antalya Hotel

COST CM 1102/IBCarb - Spring Training School - 9-11 Apr 2015, Bangor/Gwynedd, Wales/UK

Now it is almost a months ago we had the training school in Bangor. It was a real pleasure seeing all the highly motivated young researchers (and some more experienced) gathering in North Wales which showed itself from an unsual sunny side. A more detailed report will follow soon. We got a number of photos but unfortunately the camera we used wasn't too brilliant, thus many photos got a bit blurry. For the moment you get a small selection here:

The group photo (the sun just left and not everyone was at the photo location, sorry, higher resolution):

Matthew Gibson holding his Dextra Award lecture:

Before the dinner in Reichel:

A few of the brilliant posters:

Jeroen Codee started us on Friday morning with a twist:

Trinidad Velasco-Torrijos is about to give her lecture:

Mustafa Guler in the beginning of his presentation:

Carmen Galan closed the scientific sessions on Friday:

Claire Doherty (IBCarb) helped an awful lot with the admin side of this training school and introduced us to IBCarb.

Bangor sightseeing (walking - nobody wanted to take the bus to the Friday dinner):

Awards and Prizes:

Conwy sightseeing on Saturday afternoon:

 

COST CM 1102/IBCarb - Spring Training School - 9-11 Apr 2015, Bangor/Gwynedd, Wales/UK

>>>Please accept my sincere apologies for all the delays but unfortunately I picked up the various seasonal viruses! Now we are going ahead.<<<

The Spring Training School “Synthesis for nano- and glyco-sciences” is planned to be held at Bangor University and will be an excellent opportunity for PhD students/postdocs. The event will be jointly sponsored by the COST Action MultiGlycoNano CM1102 and the IBCarb. The event is hosted by Martina Lahmann, Bangor University. The focus of the meeting will be on various aspects of synthesis of 'multiglyconanoconjugates'. In plain English this means carbohydrate chemistry in one or the other way. The majority of speakers have now confirmed their participation. As everyone who ever has organised a meeting will know, the selection of the speakers was not easy. You may miss one or the other big name but our intention was to provide a platform for the 'younger generation' of carbohydrate chemists - and we realised that there are quite a number of excellent people around us. Click here to access the draft programme.

We are very pleased to present both the Dextra Carbohydrate Chemistry Award and the Buchanan Award (prize for the best ESR talk) during the event.

Key information

Deadline for applications: 13. March 2015 (abstracts) - event registration 27. March 2015

Registration

To register for this meeting please follow this link: Registration. This will open a page in Eventbrite.

More details on the event page.

 

OPPORTUNITY I: Four (4) UCD Post Doctoral Research Fellows Level 1 or Level 2 at UCD School of Chemistry & Chemical Biology

Four new Post-doc position in the research group of Professor Stefan Oscarson at the UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at University College Dublin, Ireland, are available. Post-doc positions are available for applicants with a PhD in Chemistry or in a related area. The duration of the positions are 12-24 months and the gross annual salary is 34-37,000 €. Deadline for applications: November 24, 5 pm GMT.

All the positions involve carbohydrate chemistry and especially oligosaccharide synthesis to produce biologically relevant oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates within four different areas:

1)    Glycoconjugate vaccines (Reference number 006965): The post involves chemical synthesis of carbohydrate structures corresponding to capsular polysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides (LPS) of virulent bacteria. After completed synthesis these structures will be used to print microarrays to screen antibodies. The synthetic structures will also be conjugated to selected carrier proteins and the resulting glycoconjugates will be used in immunization experiments to, in collaboration with immunologists and vaccine companies, develop efficient and well-defined glycoconjugate vaccines.

2)    Heparin structures (reference number 006966): The post involves chemical synthesis of carbohydrate structures corresponding to heparin and heparan sulfate structures for subsequent biological evaluation. The aim is to design, synthesize and investigate novel heparin structures with anticoagulant activity for development of new antithrombotic drugs and surfaces in medical devices.

3)    Lectin receptor structures (reference number 006967): The post involves chemical synthesis of a variety of carbohydrate structures that will be tested for their potency as inhibitor of bacterial binding to mucins and cell surfaces. A variety of scaffolds with different properties regarding rigidity, size and multivalency will be explored for the multivalent presentations to try to optimize the inhibitory capacity.

4)    Mucolytic saccharides (reference number 006969): The post involves chemical synthesis and characterization of a library of saccharides that will be tested for their mucolytic and spray-drying properties. For promising drug candidates their syntheses will be optimized followed by large-scale production of lead compounds and biological testing.

OPPORTUNITY II: Marie Curie ITN Post Doctoral Research Fellow Level 1 or Level 2 at University College Dublin, School of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Ireland

We invite applications for a Post-doc position at the UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at University College Dublin, Ireland. The post-doc position is available for applicants with a PhD in Chemistry (or similar) not more than four years old to develop their skills within the EU Initial Training Network FP7-GLYCOPHARM, a multidisciplinary and competitive training programme in the glycobiology of human tumours. Deadline for applications: November 24, 5 pm GMT.

The specific scientific objectives of the project are to develop selective galectin inhibitors, with special focus on cancer-related human galectins-1, -4, and -8. This will include the design and synthesis of lead compounds based on known natural ligands for the galectins and the generation of high affinity ligands by development of multivalent systems. Chemical synthesis of a variety of galactose-containing structures and analogues thereof will be targeted as well as dendrimers thereof based on various scaffolds, why experience in carbohydrate and conjugate chemistry, including oligosaccharide and dendrimer synthesis, are desirable skills. The design and biological evaluation of target inhibitor structures will be performed in collaboration with other partners within the Marie Curie Network. The project will provide the selected ER with a thorough training in a currently emerging research field with large medical potential as well as training in management and research activities in the private sector with an aim to provide the necessary research and transferable skills to enhance his/her future career.

Research Field: Chemistry - Organic chemistry/Chemical Biology
Career Stage: Experienced researcher or 4-10 yrs (Post-Doc)
Benefits: Gross annual salary will be 48,813 €. Allowance to cover expenses linked to the personal household, relocation and travel expenses of the researcher and her/his family in the host country will be 764 € /month for researchers without a family and 1091 €/month for researchers with a family.

Further information about the project and the collaborative partners can be found here: www.glycopharm.eu.

For further information about the position and to apply go to http://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies.

MultiGlycoNano 2014 - Certosa di Pontignano - 25-28 Jun 2014, Siena, Italy

The annual COST meeting was hosted by Cristina Nativi at Certosa di Pontignano (Siena) 25-28 June 2014. The scientific programme can be accessed here. A special event was organised by the TLS for the 25 June (programme). Additional information can be found here.

Here is a group photo from the last day of the meeting (higher resolution).

The photo below shows Hiroaki Suga (rm), Executive Advisor & Cofounder of Peptidreams, who gave the keynote lecture during the TLS event together with Cristina Nativi (lm), Bruce Turnbull (r) and Jean-Louis Reymond (l).

 

Spring Training School “Dynamic nano- and glyco-sciences” - SPONSORED BY COST CM1102

This is an excellent opportunity for 25 PhD students/postdocs. The event is sponsored by COST Action MultiGlycoNano CM1102.

The event is hosted by Stéphane Vincent and organised jointly with the “Dynano” ITN network.

When: 7-9 April 2014

Where: University of Namur, Belgium

Additional information can be found here.

Application deadline: 31. January 2014 (!)

 

The COST Winter Training School in Grenoble was a success!

The purpose of this training school was to give young scientists an integrative/multidisciplinary overview of the different approaches that can be used for characterizing the three-dimensional structures of glycans, glycoconjugates or protein/glycoconjugates complexes. Current methods for analyzing the kinetics and thermodynamics of interaction between a glycoconjugate and a protein receptor or an enzyme were also on the schedule. Both theoretical and practical aspects were illustrated with applications relevevant for the health-related domains.

The meeting hosted 46 young scientists from 15 different countries, all participating in the COST Action CM1102.  The 13 facilitators came from 4 countries and provided the exciting lectures and made sure that all labs during the workshop went smoothly.

The training school lasted three days and was held in different locations of Grenoble in order to give the opportunity to visit the different campuses in Grenoble. Details can be found here.

The winter training school in Grenoble was a success! The interest in the event was beyond expectations and the organiser worked hard to give as many applicants the opportunity to join the training school. Here is the official group photo and here are photos taken during the workshops!

 

COST Winter Training School in Grenoble (DEADLINE APPROACHING!)

In November 2013, the Winter Training School "Structural Glycosciences" will give 20 young scientists the opportunity to enhance their knowledge on various techniques that  have been developed to characterise the 3D structures of glycans, glycoconjugates and protein-glycoconjugate complexes. Details can be found here.

 

Marie Curie PhD Fellowship in the field of glyco-chemistry of tumours available (Early stage researcher or 0-4 yrs, Post graduate, UCD - Dublin, Ireland)


Application dead-line: August 4, 2013 (Sorry for but please NOTE the short dead-line)
Start date: September 1, 2013

More information is available here.

UK Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition (1-7 July)  features “The Complex Life of Sugars”.

http://sse.royalsociety.org/2013/exhibits/sweet-complexity

The exhibition team have prepared a really great animated video on glycoscience which is worth checking out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHCpbEZ3kEg&feature=youtu.be

The Royal Society has also commissioned a Glycoscience computer game called “Cell Invaders”. You have to construct oligosaccharides using CFG sugar symbols and throw them at various cell invaders to stop them sticking to your own cell surface. It is really fantastic! Please try it out and VOTE for Cell Invaders! The game with the most votes will be developed further by the Royal Society after the exhibition (opportunity to replace the occasional missing GlcNAc...)

The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London. SW1Y 5AG.

The 2013 Chairs of Excellence Program of the Nanosciences Foundation (Call for application)

The Nanosciences Foundation is fostering fundamental research in Grenoble (France) focused on Nanosciences. The Foundation is supporting a network of 33 laboratories gathering about 1000 scientists across the various research institutions based in Grenoble. The Foundation’s main goals are to boost a world-class Nanosciences Research within the network of laboratories by funding collaborative and multidisciplinary projects. Some details can be found here.

Joint COST/RSC meeting in Birmingham

YouTube videos from the workshop are available.

COST meeting in Prague

The most recent COST event was running as a satellite meeting of the 10th Carbohydrate Bioengineering Meeting in Prague, Czech Republic (21-24 April 2013).

Lectures and the poster session covered important aspects of glycoconjugates and glyconanomaterials. Photographes of the meeting can be found here.

Short Term Scientific Missions awards are listed in the section Exchange and Training.

 

Opportunity for young academics or senior postdoctoral researchers working in Glycosciences

Registration is now open for the next European Young Investigator Workshop (EYIW) “Deciphering the Glycome – from synthesis to applications”: www.mpikg.mpg.de/EYIW

 

The meeting will take place in Potsdam/Berlin from the 17th - 20th of March 2013 to coincide with the Glycan Forum Berlin which will take place straight after our meeting (we will have one joint session on 20th March in which selected EYIW participants will present lectures at the Glycan Forum meeting).
 
The workshop will follow the format of previous events held in Dublin and Lyon and will involve around 40 participants who will each give presentations on their work during the meeting. Most of the participants will be young academics or senior postdoctoral researchers.
 
There will also be plenary lectures from international leaders in the field of glycoscience including: Peter Seeberger (Max Planck Institute, Berlin); Alexei Demchenko (University of Missouri – St Louis); Gijs van der Marel (University of Leiden); Serge Perez (ESRF Grenoble); Anne Imberty (CNRS, Grenoble).
 
The European Science Foundation is funding a number of bursaries for early stage researchers to attend this meeting.  Applications for a bursary should be made by sending a CV and talk abstract to: eyiw.glyco@mpikg.mpg.de
 

More details are available on the website: www.mpikg.mpg.de/EYIW

Or by contacting: eyiw.glyco@mpikg.mpg.de