Research Interests
The main theme of the research in the Tan group is to better understand the biochemical and biological role of glycans and to apply the obtained knowledge to real-world problems, for example improving or developing new therapeutic peptides and proteins, industrial enzymes, advanced materials, and diagnostic tools. Glycans (also called carbohydrates, saccharides, or sugars) have long been known to be a major category of biomolecule, alongside DNA and RNA, proteins and lipids. Glycans play important roles in human health and disease, including defining the ABO blood group and regulating immunity and inflammation. They are also an essential source of energy and materials. Despite this importance, this class of molecules remains understudied, and thus also underutilized, mainly because we lack efficient tools to produce large collections of glycans and glycoconjugates (glycopeptides, glycoproteins, glycolipids, peptidoglycans, and lipopolysaccharides - all molecules that have saccharides covalently linked to proteins, peptides or lipids) with defined, systematically varied structures. The Tan group applied the latest advances in chemical synthesis to prepare homogeneous glycans and glycoconjugates. The predictability and flexibility of chemical synthesis allows the generation of structurally well-defined glycans and glycoconjugates with both natural and unnatural structures. Through their dedicated and continuous efforts, the group has demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of chemical synthesis in determining the quantitative effects and molecular mechanisms of glycans in regulating protein biophysical and biological properties. More importantly, the knowledge obtained from these studies helps to formulate a directional strategy that can guide the group’s studies towards more complex glycosylation or other post-translational modifications, and to improve the properties and performance of proteins through rational glycoengineering.
