5^th International Conference on Glycobiology & Glycoproteomics August 27-28, 2018 Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Professor Yuriy Knirel has completed his PhD at the age of 26 years, and 15 years later received ScD degree from the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2005, he is the head of the Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry in the Zelinsky Institute. Yuriy Knirel represents Russia in the International and European Carbohydrate Organisations; in 2015-2017, he was the president of the ECO. Yuriy Knirel has published more than 700 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been serving as an editor of Carbohydrate Research and an editorial board member of a number of scientific journals.

Reserach interests of Dr. Y.A. Knirel include studies of the lipopolysaccharides of medically important Gram-negative bacteria, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aeromonas hydrophila etc.

Professor:Pathology & Immunology Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX, US Director of Operations:Center for Drug Discovery Co-Director:Immunology Graduate Program

Dr. Sifers helped pioneer the initial mechanistic analysis of the biological systems that manage glycoprotein homeostasis (i.e., glycoproteostasis) in the mammalian secretory pathway. Using alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency as a medically relevant paradigm and client, his lab characterized the processes of chaperone-assisted glycoprotein folding as a means of conformation-based intracellular retention, and proposed and characterized the mannose timer hypothesis as an initial step in N-glycan-targeted proteolysis (quality control). Subsequently, his team identified the underlying contribution of the unfolded protein response (UPR), and elucidated how compromised quality control can function as an etiologic agent of infantile liver cirrhosis.

During my thesis work in Dr. Celia Schiffer's laboratory, I was tasked with defining and understanding the role of mutations outside of the active site of the HIV-1 protease as it pertains to drug resistance. Briefly, mutations outside of the active site were generally accepted as having compensatory roles to restore enzyme fitness but through my thesis work I was able to determine their direct roles in drug resistance and also pinpoint which mutations underlie changes in various biochemical properties that are essential to drug binding. I also worked very closely with the laboratory of Dr. Ronald Swanstrom over the duration of this project for use of variants they acquired during viral passaging studies. I am still very interested in developing computational techniques to aid in the study of infectious diseases.

Structural Biology, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics

Prof. José Kovensky has PhD from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina, 1992). He did his postdoctoral research at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France, 1994-1995). After being Professor of Organic Chemistry in Argentina, he got a Full Professor position in Amiens in 2002. He has been principal investigator of several projects financed by the Regional Council or Picardie Region, binational projects France-Germany, France-Argentine, and partner in European Projects. He has directed or co-directed 12 PhD theses. He is co-author of more than 80 publications (articles, book chapters, patents).

He has a wide experience in the synthesis and modification of oligosaccharides, in particular uronic acid containing oligosaccharides, sulfonated oligosaccharides, glycosaminoglycans, multivalent glycoclusters, and sugar-based surfactants.

Jun-ichi Kadokawa received his Ph.D. in 1992. He then joined Yamagata University as a Research Associate. From 1996 to 1997, he worked as a visiting scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Germany. In 1999, he became an Associate Professor at Yamagata University and moved to Tohoku University in 2002. He was appointed as a Professor of Kagoshima University in 2004. His research interests focus on polysaccharide materials. He received the Award for Encouragement of Research in Polymer Science (1997) and the Cellulose Society of Japan Award (2009). He has published more than 200 papers in academic journals.

Chemistry of Polysaccharides, Polymer Synthesis

Dr. Wu obtained his Ph.D degree with W. Pigman, who is one of the pioneers in glycoproteins, at New York Medical College; and had his postdoctoral training at E.A. Kabat’s Lab for quantitative immunochemistry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. He joined as a faculty position at Texas A&M University in 1982; promoted as a full professor at Chang-Gung University since 1989; and as Emeritus Professor in 2011. Dr, Wu published over 120 glycoprotein and polyvalent glycotopes related papers. He is the chief editor for three volumes of Molecular Immunology of COMPLEX Carbohydrates 1 to 3 in Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 228, 451, 705 (Springer Publisher). His major interests are (i) Glycan purification and characterization; (ii) recognition factors of glycans; (iii) combining sites of lectins and antibodies. He received many Outstanding Research Awards from government agents in Taiwan and U.S.A.

His major interests are (i) Glycan purification and characterization; (ii) recognition factors of glycans; (iii) combining sites of lectins and antibodies.