Why Glycobiology? Here's why

Ever since McDawg was introduced to the field of Glycobiology early 2003, he's remained firmly hooked.

I spotted an excellent new article today via Google News from Science Daily.

In my chosen role as a Patient Advocate, this stimulated me to post something of substance on one of the Forum's that I frequent from time to time. The one in question is 'closed' to non-Forum users since those who are registered, are mostly patients/carers and data/personal information is free for all to see. It's called, PatientsLikeMe. PLM for short.

I've been part of PLM's ALS/MND community for nearly two years now.

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After that introduction, whilst I've not posted anything on that particular Forum for a while, follows a copy of my most recent comment, uploaded today.

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Earlier on today, I spotted something rather important so I wish to bring this up on PLM. This is most probably worthy of a thread of it's own, however, I've chosen to post it on this thread after giving this some thought.

This to me is the most recent further evidence of the importance of Glycobiology as a research field and the wide implications this has when studying diseases both objectively and subjectively.

Rather than starting a new thread however, I thought it was not a bad idea to continue to post items related to Glycobiology under the same roof as it were - hence, why I chose here.

Before I get to the reason for posting this entry, I wish to continue the theme of updating progress (re. my research) generally as per previous posts on this thread.

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I can report the following:-

a) Last Saturday, Professor Peter Murray-Rust and I met in person for the first time and got stuck into writing our Manuscript "Access to Published Medicine: A Universal Right" Thankfully, our paths met at this Conference and as was publicly announced in the wrap up session by Peter, the stage was set for writing. Up till then, we had made some progress online, but in the end, it required a physical meet up to get things moving along.

Here we are chatting during a Manuscript writing 'tea break':-


(the Prof is the bearded one)

b) I continue to make progress on points b) and c) above. A few other co-authors (undergrad to PhD to Professor) from various countries have joined those who have already agreed to write up the next two chapters of this set of Manuscripts. One is namely ALS/MND orientated, the other, a more general review of protein misfolding diseases and published/unpublished data/research. All of my/our research is destined for Open Access Journals.

c) I'm particularly attracted to the ethos of Open Science. Discussing and sharing thoughts/ideas/data about new research ahead of publication in a peer reviewed journal - very much what we do here at PLM !! There's a great new feature article about this entitled "Era of scientific secrecy nears its end" over at MSNBC which is well worth a read. Moreover, having at last met (also last weekend) the key scientists who are leading the way, this drew it home to me that this can be done, and is being done.

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So, without further ado, here is:- "Do 68 Molecules Hold The Key To Understanding Disease?" from Science Daily 4th Sept 2008. I have previously had contact with both Prof Jamey Marth and Prof Ajit Varki who are world leaders in the field of Glycobiology.


"Like the periodic table of elements, first published in 1869 by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, is to chemistry, Marth’s visual metaphor offers a new framework for biologists."