Warren W. Wakarchuk
Principal Investigator
Warren has been leading a glycobiology team since 1994. His expertise is in carbohydrate active enzymes, especially their structure and function. His team has been developing enzymes for the synthesis of bioactive molecules in vitro and in vivo. He is currently the Scientific Director of the not-for- profit enterprise GlycoNet, and GlycoNet integrated services. When not directing the team, he can be found cooking or playing guitar.
Nicole Thompson BSc
Technician & Lab Manager
Nicole is a biochemistry COOP program graduate of Waterloo University. She is working on developing and characterizing the protein O-glycosylation performed by the synthetic OGO operons in E. coli. She is also working on cloning and characterizing a variety of glycosyltransferases for in vitro synthetic work.
Daryl Siapuatco BSc
Technician
Daryl is the driving force behind producing enzymes for synthesis for GlycoNet Integrated Services. He also help train new recruits.
Blake Zheng MSc
Technician
Blake is the analytical guru for N- and O-glycan work for GlycoNet Integrated services. He is also very handy with cloning and expression of pretty much anything.
Kajal Kamboj BSc
PhD candidate
Kajal is furthering the application of the O-glycan operon platform to engineer various cytokines. As part of the thesis work, some re-engineering of genes and target proteins is a major focus. Working with undergraduate project students she is also optimizing the growth conditions to yield maximum glycosylation.
Myaa Ghadie BSc
MSc candidate
Myaa is working on a new version of O-glycosylated cytokines for oral delivery. This project involves engineering human and mouse versions of the proteins, and then in vitro modification with GalNAz followed by a click reaction to add a plant glycan modified with an alkyne.
Cameron King BSc
MSc candidate
Cameron is looking at how glycosylation of proteins in Actinobacteria effect cell wall synthesis. He is using fluorescent fusion proteins and fluorescent antibiotics to visualize where various peptidoglycan active proteins go in the presence and absence of their glycosylation.
May Wong BSc
MSc candidate
May is following up on some database mining and using AI tools to find better glycosyltransferases for various glycan engineering projects
