Breaking the limits in Glycan recognition by NMR

CFM COLLOQUIUM SERIES

In this seminar, Ana Gimeno and Jesús Jiménez-Barbero, from CIC bioGUNE, will present how nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has become a key tool to understand how small molecules (herein focused on glycans -complex sugars -) are recognized by proteins in biological systems. By combining advanced NMR methods with complementary biophysical and structural approaches, the research of the lab reveals how glycans interact with lectins and antibodies involved in immune responses, cancer, and infectious diseases. Special emphasis will be placed on the use of isotope-enhanced NMR to probe glycan structure, dynamics, and molecular recognition at atomic resolution, even in highly flexible systems. The seminar will illustrate how these NMR-driven insights support structure-based drug and vaccine design and deepen our understanding of how glycan–protein interactions control biological function in health and disease. The concepts can be extended to any ligand-receptor interacting system.