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Where Scientists are Meeting the Need for Interdisciplinary Solutions to Biological Problems Facing Society Through Applied Organic Chemistry and Glyco-Cancer Immunology Research

The overall objective of the Willand-Charnley Lab, also known as the RAWC (pronounced "rock") lab, is to generate solutions synergistically between both the lab's glyco-cancer immunology team and the lab's organic chemistry team, to produce cross-disciplinary research, insights and scientists, at the undergraduate (and graduate) level concerning chronic biological problems facing society.

Currently the Willand-Charnley Lab has four areas of focus to work toward our objective:

1. Elucidate glycan-related biochemical mechanisms of action (this area is the focus of this proposal).
2. Glycan-related synthetic methods development.
3. Glycan-related therapeutic development.
4. Mechanistic elucidation and therapeutic development surrounding chemical warfare agents.

Concerning biochemical mechanisms of action, the lab is focused on understanding how cancers utilize functionalized sugar residues, specifically sialic acid, to participate in tumorigenic processes, metastasis, immune evasion and multidrug resistance, as well as how that altered communication extends to other members of the immune system by decreasing the release of cytokines and chemokines, resulting in increasing cancer's survival.

The lab has identified a critical functional group alteration, deacetylation, on sialic acid that allows colon and lung cancers to evade natural killer cell killing. The glyco-cancer immunology work informs the synthetic method and the glycan therapeutic development team, which began robust synthetic methods surrounding sialic acid early in the lab's programming that are the foundational methods in which we are building upon today to optimize glycan therapeutics.

Being at the intersection of chemistry and biology allows the lab the unique advantage of developing therapeutics and testing those therapeutics to address the critical need in house and with assurance.

Concerning cancer, the lab has been working on two enzyme-antibody conjugates that target lung and colon cancers, altering the functional groups on their cell's surface exposing them to the immune mediated killing.