Ben Schumann

Check our new venture into drug discovery #glycotime!

The entire paper is supported by (often sub-A resolution) crystal structure magic by @stephcrystallab.bsky.social and Andy Purkiss @crick.ac.uk. My favourite one is of the covalent linkage of WBC10 with Tyr211 - a thing of beauty! Next --> Application!

In parallel, Will performed a covalent, sulfonyl fluoride-targeted fragment screen and found Tyr211 to be especially reactive. Because Tyr211 is around the same binding pocket for our non-covalent inhibitors, we decided to merge these chemotypes. And it worked!

The Bertozzi and Ferguson labs have targeted GALE in the early 2000s (references in the paper!), so we knew it could be drugged. Will did a tour de force fragment screen with colleages @crick.ac.uk at XChem @diamondlightsource.bsky.social. Rounds of iteration got him a good non-covalent inhibitor.

The human UDP-Gal-4-epimerase is important for cellular biosynthesis of UDP-Gal and UDP-GalNAc. Both are important precursors for glycosylation. GALE KO abrogates cellular levels of these metabolites. GALE plays a role in cancer (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31908526/) - so we decided to drug it!

Convergent Lead Discovery Strategies Yield Covalent and Non-covalent Inhibitors of Human UDP-Galactose-4-Epimerase O-GalNAc (N-acetylgalactosaminyl) glycosylation is an abundant posttranslational modification in mammalian cells. Dysregulation of O-GalNAc glycosylation is implicated in cancer metastasis and immune ...

Check out our new preprint "Convergent Lead Discovery Strategies Yield Covalent and Non-covalent Inhibitors of Human UDP-Galactose-4-Epimerase" on Chemrxiv led by Will Browne in close collab with GSK @jtbush.bsky.social

chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

Open Call: Max Planck Director in Biological Artificial Intelligence Expressions of interest or nominations to lead research in the field of Biological Artificial Intelligence at MPI-CBG.

Here's a job at my institute that just opened up: Max Planck Director in Biological AI. This is an amazing opportunity -
www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

Check out our first PhD advert, primarily for enthusiastic students with a chemical/chemoenzymatic synthesis background:

www.verw.tu-dresden.de/StellAus/stelle.asp?id=12186&lang=en&style=cms2

A special Thank You to @crick.ac.uk and @imperialchemistry.bsky.social, all my friends, mentors, colleagues and collaborators for their amazing support throughout the years - we had (and will continue to have) a lot of fun in London, it is a special place!

A huge Thank You to my amazing lab, everybody has been so supportive.

Dresden is an amazingly collaborative place with a unique, multidisciplinary scientific infrastructure. Our lab will be based in the Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, with lots of interactions and collabs.

🥳 Thrilled to share that I am starting a new position as W3 Full Professor of Biochemistry at @tudresden.bsky.social. From Aug 2025, the Chemical Glycobiology Lab will continue our mission to generate Chemical Precision Tools for #glycotime in one the most beautiful places in Germany 😊

🔥 Job alert! We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD candidate in the new Chemical Glycobiology Lab at @tudresden.bsky.social! Master in Chem or similar, experience in organic chem including chemoenzymatic, and most importantly: enthusiasm!

Deadline 8th July:

www.verw.tu-dresden.de/StellAus/ste...

Thank you to our organizers for putting together this program:
@stephanhacker2.bsky.social
Marina Rubini
@borisvauzeilles.bsky.social
@michellefrei17.bsky.social
Hana Macíčková Cahová
@drglycoben.bsky.social
@mlakemeyer.bsky.social
Shixian Lin
@rubenragg.bsky.social
Meghan Lucas
(4/4)

Self-assembled PROTACs enable glycoproteins degradation in the living cells We report here a two-component proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) strategy selectively targeting O-GalNAcylated and O-GlcNAcylated proteins for proteasomal degradation, which leads to severe tox...

Great to see the new concept of protein PTMs functionalization published in @chemicalscience.rsc.org! The GlyTACs enable selective degradation of glycoproteins in living cells. Congratulation to Haoyu and Liu. Have a look on the full story here: pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A... #chembio

#chembio, #glycotime and #bioorganic crowd, join us tomorrow online ✨for free✨!!

Great news for @tudresden.bsky.social! 🎉 In addition to Physics of Life, 4 additional Excellence Clusters were funded at the TUD by the DFG @dfg.de. Congratulations to all our friends and colleagues, and especially to the Speakers of the Clusters and the TUD rector!

Read more: tud.link/cfwd9z

Registration link: www.esboc.org.uk?p=1235

The awesome lineup on 28th May 2025 UK time:

9.30 – 10:00 Craig Markin (Manchester)
10:00 – 10.30 Yi Jin (Manchester)
10.30 – 11:00 Barbara Imperiali (MIT)
11:00 – 11.30 Roman Dembinski (Oakland University)
11.30 – 12:00 Stephen Cochrane (Queen’s University Belfast)

🔥 Exciting online, free #chembio event on 28th May!!

Please join us online for the hybrid ESBOC Satellite meeting! Setup as a teaser to allow for accessibility and see some of the speakers that will attend ESBOC in Gregynog/Wales. To attend, please register by sending an email: lnkd.in/e-U7C6Jb

It's a big #glycotime family!

It doesn't happen very often that you receive an award on the same day as your mentor. Congratulations to Peter Seeberger on winning the @rsc.org Khorana Award #glycotime! And I am very thankful to the amazing lab members, colleagues and mentors that led to winning the Norman Heatley Award!

Schumann lab

Schumann lab poster award winners

We had a blast at yesterday's @rsc.org Chemical Biology Symposium. Congratulations to Teresa and Freya who were awarded a prestigious poster prize!

Nice one - congrats @nmriley.bsky.social! Well deserved for #glycotime!

We are happy to announce the new team that will organize the Virtual ChemBioTalks from this edition onwards
Marina Rubini
@mlakemeyer.bsky.social
@michellefrei17.bsky.social
Hana Macíčková Cahová
@drglycoben.bsky.social
@borisvauzeilles.bsky.social
@stephanhacker2.bsky.social
(1/4)
#ChemBio #ChemSky

Join us for the #GBMLunch Lunch on April 9 (12.30 PM)
Speaker: Ben Schumann @drglycoben.bsky.social from @crick.ac.uk
Title: Chemical Precision Tools to Dissect Protein Glycosylation
Chair: Oliver Thorn-Seshold @oliverthornseshold.bsky.social (Technische Universität Dresden)

I did not review it (and can't see peer review file), so are you suggesting that reviewers were not thorough enough? Which is possible but I am not sure about given the scale of the work/journal. What remains is to be critical (as always) and let the scientific process go its way, right?

I am not defending (non-)existence of glycoRNAs either way. Peer review should screen for comprehensive evidence of claims. With new data, claims may be revised. Mechanism is important but often not possible in a given time/budget. Does that mean that original paper should not have been published?

Super proud of the lab representation at the Glycobiology GRS. Check out the work by @sandhyasridhar.bsky.social, @hc3009.bsky.social and @sophiedschmidt.bsky.social at the GRC! #glycotime

🤷‍♂️ scientific discourse. It also appears to be the case that neither lab used (or tried) the exact same procedure. We'll see what happens.

Again, lots of valid questions. Not sure I fully support the notion that we can't publish findings until every possible question is resolved - there's too much of that sort of gatekeeping already in the peer review process. I'd just go by the evidence.