Research Insights

The BioFoundry: Glycoscience Resources, Education, And Training (BioF:GREAT) will develop new research, technologies, and instructional experiences to allow a broader adoption of glycoscience into research environments and education curriculums. Although glycans, also referred to as complex carbohydrates, are one of the four classes of biomolecules found in all living organisms, they have been consistently understudied in the laboratory and undertaught in the classroom. This is despite the fact that biofuel and biomaterial efforts rely heavily on glycan biomass from plants, the vast majority of biologics in medicine are glycoproteins, and glycans are found on cell surfaces of all living cells where they contribute to cell interactions and diverse biological functions. Unlike DNA/RNA and proteins, glycans are rarely linear polymers and are not generated by template-based processes. This complexity has made them difficult to study at the bench and challenging to teach in the classroom. BioF:GREAT will leverage a broad range of expertise, including AI and machine learning, to generate research tools and technologies, while also developing and deploying novel instructional and training strategies, resources, research materials, and automated tools in the field to propel glycoscience into the scientific mainstream and lead to paradigm shifts in glycoscience education. BioF:GREAT discoveries and deliverables are expected to lead to commercial applications in bioenergy, bioengineering, biomaterials, and biomedicine. The BioFoundry: Glycoscience Resources, Education, And Training (BioF:GREAT) will take advantage of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center (CCRC) at the University of Georgia (UGA), home to one of the largest communities of glycobiologists in the world, coupled with UGA experts in bioinformatics/machine learning and pedagogy/evaluation. The Research team will focus on three synergistic goals: 1) bioinformatic tools/machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI) to predict and define glycoenzymes and glycoproteins, 2) glycoenzyme expression, characterization, and manipulation, and 3) mass spectrometry-facilitated analyses of glycan modifications. The Technology Development team will focus on four themes that will generate 1) expression libraries for glycoenzymes from diverse species sources, 2) fine-tuned protein language models and new user-friendly informatics tools for classifying and predicting glycoenzymes and site-specific glycosylation of glycoproteins, 3) engineered glycoenzymes for generating novel chemical biology tools, and 4) species-agnostic methods for the mass spectrometry-based analyses of glycoproteins. The User Facility will provide hands-on training and service using cutting-edge computational, enzymatic, and analytical glycoscience approaches. Collaboration among User Facility, Research, and Technology Development teams will lead to the deployment of new technologies to catalyze in-house research and technology development efforts. The User Facility will equally focus on external glycobiology research projects spanning the tree of life in partnerships with scientists at R1 and non-R1 schools including minority-, primarily undergraduate-, and EPSCoR-serving institutions. The Education/Instruction team will establish and evaluate a suite of instructional experiences, including small modules for existing chemistry/biology courses, dedicated stand-alone glycoscience courses at the undergraduate/graduate level, and hands-on summer courses for beginners and experts with rigorous attention to best pedagogical practices and evaluation for improvement. Our Platform-Sharing team will facilitate the transfer of deliverables from the bench and the classroom to academic, government, and commercial/industrial research communities using a knowledge graph framework consistent with the Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN). By providing equitable access to advanced infrastructure and resources in glycoscience, BioF:GREAT will advance scientific inquiry and education in biosciences across all kingdoms of life.

Funder: National Science Foundation 

Amount: $18,000,000 

PI: Lance Wells, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology