MCGalan Lab

Great to see our team @bristolchem @bowendeng9373, Sofia Oliveira and Kun Yang at the CCS-d3-bridge 2026 meeting
sites.google.com/view/ccs-d-bri… in Japan, where they are presenting their work on virtual tools to predict G4 folding and ligand interactions @AdrianMulholla1 @Spencer_D60

Out now in @natchembio.nature.com: Xylosyltransferase engineering to manipulate proteoglycans in mammalian cells 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... check out the press release below! #glycotime

Hypervalent chalcogenonium organocatalysis for the direct stereoselective synthesis of deoxyglycosides from hemiacetals Lewis acids are frequently used as catalysts in glycosylation reactions, however these reagents often suffer from significant limitations such as sensitivity to moisture and poor stereocontrol. Chalco...

Excited to see our latest collaboration on the use of hypervalent chalcogenonium organocatalysis for the direct stereoselective synthesis of deoxyglycosides from hemiacetals. @jenniferjohns01 @THansenChem @MukulMahanti pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

⚠️ New pre-print just dropped!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bump-and-hole engineering has served us exquisitely to develop chemical tools that are specific for individual glycosyltransferases. Now, Yu Liu, Saskia Pieters and lots of colleagues have taken the method a step further!

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas and a great start to 2026 from all of us in the Galan group 🎄

Just made it back to Bristol in time to celebrate with @CalumHaydon on passing his PhD viva today @BristolChem @BCS_CDT Many congratulations Dr Haydon!!!🥳 Many thanks Clare Mahon and Adam Nobel for examining.

Last stop before heading back to Bristol is the Tropical Medicine Microbiology and Immunology meeting by the Kwai river in Kanchanaburi. Jim Spencer @Spencer_D60 and I shared our work on antimicrobials @BristolChem @BristolUni @Bristol_AMR Thanks to @MahidolU for organising.

Great start to the Joint International Tropical Medicine Meeting www.jitmm.com with @Spencer_D60 to share our work on glycan-based AMR diagnostics and therapeutics. Such a great opportunity to catch up with friends and collaborators and a bit of local culture. @brisunipress.bsky.social

Many congratulations to our own @jenniferjohns01 from @BristolChem @BCS_CDT for winning an award for her poster presentation @rsc.org Organic Chemistry Symposium yesterday. Well done #sugarcatalysis 🥳👏

Fantastic visit today to @mupharm in Bangkok. Thanks Dr. Satsawat Visansirikul for hosting and discussing with the exciting work taking place in the pharmacy department.

Many thanks S. Kulkarni for organising this One Day Symposium on Chemistry and Biology of Glycans @iitbombay Always a pleasure to come to Mumbai and interact with colleagues and students. @BristolChem @BristolUni Looking forward to exciting opportunities between our institutes.

Many congratulations to Bella Law from @Spencer_D60 jointly with our group @BristolChem on passing her MRes Viva today 🥳. Many thanks to @drzoewaller.bsky.social and Angela Nobbs for examining. Wish I could have been there in person to celebrate with you. 🍾

Day 2 of the ‘Emerging Trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology (ETGG-2025) at Banaras Hindu University continues … delighted to share our latest work on synthetic strategies for oligosaccharide synthesis and applications. @BristolChem and visiting the campus temple

Great first day of the Carbo-39 Emerging trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology etgg-bhu-2025.in at BHU Varanasi, hosted by @VinodKTiwari6 Ecstatic to be the “Guest of Honour” at today’s Inaugural function. @BristolChem

Such a pleasure to be here @IITHyderabad to kick start the chemspirit.com Such a fantastic conference. Many thanks @ASau_Chem and other conveners for the invitation. @BristolChem

Many congratulations to @NinaMaiAllen @BristolChem @BCS_CDT on passing her PhD viva today. Many thanks to Chris @Willis_Group and Marco @diantoniogroup.bsky.social for examining 🥳

Extending Thioflavin T Fluorescence Probe to 2-Ethenyl-benzothiazole Derivatives: Drug-like Quadruplex Ligands with Potent Antitrypanosomatid Activity Thioflavin T (ThT) is a well-established fluorescence probe with selectivity for G-quadruplex (G4) structures. Over the past few years, G4 ligands have emerged as promising candidates for the development of antiparasitic agents. Building on this concept, we explored extending ThT’s benzothiazole scaffold by introducing various 2-ethenyl aromatic and heteroaromatic moieties, aiming to enhance G4 binding affinity and potential therapeutic effect. A series of benzothiazolium derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their antiproliferative and antiparasitic activity. Several 2-ethenyl benzothiazole derivatives showed submicromolar activity against Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma brucei parasites, with up to 200-fold selectivity over MRC-5 human lung fibroblasts. Notably, compound 2b demonstrated remarkable potency, with an IC50 of 0.48 nM and a selectivity index of 46,151 against Leishmania major amastigotes, and an IC50 of 0.019 nM and a selectivity index of 79,206 against T. brucei. In fact, compound 2b demonstrated superior efficacy and selectivity in comparison to the clinically used drugs suramin, fexinidazole, miltefosine, and amphotericin B. Biophysical studies revealed that all tested derivatives exhibited significant G4 stabilization, surpassing ThT. Location of compound 2b inside the nucleus and the kinetoplast, as well as partially in the mitochondria, opens up the possibility of 2b acting against the parasite through binding to G4.

Excited to share our contribution on the development of new fluorescent 2-ethenyl-benzothiazole analogues: drug-like G4 ligands with potent antitrypanosomatid activity with JCMorales, MRaposo @ipbln_csic @Bristolchem @NinaMaiAllen @YJenny_Jiang at al
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Many congratulations to our own @GuiMarczak @BristolChem 🥳 on winning one of the Poster prizes at the recent www.slonmr.si/anna_2025/in.... Such a great meeting on Nucleic Acids Research!!

Many congratulations to @jenniferjohns01 @BCS_CDT @BristolChem for winning the Biosynth best oral presentation at the RSC Carbohydrate Winter meeting 2025 www.rsc.org/events/detai... 🥳

Really excited to be here in Turku, Finland at the 34th BioCity symposium biocityturku.fi/biocity-sympos… to showcase our latest synthetic tools as bacterial diagnostic tools @BristolChem

Bridged Azobenzene Exhibits Fully Reversible Photocontrolled Binding to a G-Quadruplex DNA/Duplex Junction The ability to selectively control DNA conformation using light as an external stimulus offers unique opportunities to control specific DNA sequences in biological settings and to develop nucleotide-b...

Check out our latest work with @JaviRamSor @AdrianMulholla1 @dengbowen9373 @chemistry_mike @DoudouLu319, Sofia Oliveira and others @bristolchem on a new bridged azobenzene with reversible photocontrolled binding to a G-Quadruplex DNA/Duplex junction. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Enhorabuena!

Want to learn about sigma hole donor XB and ChB catalysis in oligosaccharide synthesis, have a look at our recent Focus Review.
@MukulMahanti @BristolChem

sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Carbon Dots as an Emergent Class of Sustainable Antifungal Agents Carbon-based functional nanomaterials with distinct photoluminescent properties have gained significant attention for their diverse applications in bioimaging, biomedicine, and antimicrobial treatment...

Carbon Dots as an Emergent Class of Sustainable Antifungal Agents | ACS Nano pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Congratulations to @DoudouLu319 from our group @Bristolchem on winning one of the Poster Prizes at the recent RSC Nucleic Acids Forum 2025 - #G4photocontrol 🙌

Congratulations to all the prize winners from the Nucleic Acids Forum 2025! An amazing selection of talks and posters to choose from! Thank you to our prize sponsors Chemgenes and RSC Chemical Biology!
@rscchembio.rsc.org
@mikeboothlab.bsky.social

As promised, postdoc positions at BristolUni.bsky.social available in homogeneous catalysis and computational chemistry exploring the replacement of palladium catalysts by Earth-Abundant Metals: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

#ChemSky #CompChemSky #ChemJobs #UKChemJobs

Great talk from @jenniferjohns01 @BCS_CDT @eurocarb22 discussing our latest results on stereoselective glycal activation.

Really happy to receive the 2025 Emil Fisher Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry @eurocarb22 @BristolChem jointly with @FlitschSabine . Looking forward to the rest of the meeting.

Really excited for the start of @eurocarb22 in Gdansk. Kicking off with a choir performance before we move to the scientific programme at the beautiful Baltic Philharmonic.