| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/K027263/1 |
| Title: |
Surface-Based Molecular Imprinting for Glycoprotein Recognition |
| Principal Investigator: |
Mendes, Professor P |
| Other Investigators: |
|
| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
|
| Project Partners: |
|
| Department: |
Chemical Engineering |
| Organisation: |
University of Birmingham |
| Scheme: |
EPSRC Fellowship |
| Starts: |
30 September 2013 |
Ends: |
31 May 2019 |
Value (£): |
1,153,218
|
| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Analytical Science |
Chemical Synthetic Methodology |
| Surfaces & Interfaces |
|
|
| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
|
| Related Grants: |
|
| Panel History: |
|
|
Summary on Grant Application Form |
One of the most common post-translational modifications of proteins is glycosylation, the process by which short sugar chains are selectively added to specific protein residues, resulting in a huge number of glycoprotein variants (glycoforms). There is now overwhelming evidence that glycosylation changes during the development and progression of various malignancies. Altered glycosylation has been implicated in cancer, immune deficiencies, neurodegenerative diseases, hereditary disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Many clinical biomarkers in cancer are glycoproteins, such as CEA in colorectal cancer, CA125 in ovarian cancer, HER2 in breast cancer, PSA in prostate cancer and fetoprotein in liver cancer. Glycoproteomics is rapidly emerging as an important technique for biomarker discovery, and glycoproteins are expected to become increasingly important to the diagnosis and management of human diseases.
Currently, monoclonal antibodies are playing a central role in enabling the detection of glycoprotein biomarkers using a variety of immunodiagnostic tests such as enzyme linked immunosorbant assays (ELISA). Nonetheless, monoclonal antibodies do have their own set of drawbacks that limit the commercialization of antibody sensing technology. They suffer from poor stability, need special handling and require a complicated, costly production procedure. More importantly, they lack specificity because they bind only to a small site on the biomarker (i.e. epitope) and are not able to discriminate, for instance, among different glycosylated proteins. The current antibody diagnostic technology has well recognized limitations regarding their accuracy and timeliness of disease diagnosis. This fellowship will focus on research into the means of developing a generic, robust, reliable and cost-effective alternative to monoclonal antibody technology. The fellowship aims to exploit concepts and tools from nanochemistry, supramolecular chemistry and molecular imprinting to provide highly innovative synthetic recognition platforms with high sensitivity and specificity for glycoproteins. Such novel type of platforms will make a profound and significant impact in the broad fields of biosensors and protein separation devices with applications in many areas such as biomedical diagnostics, pharmaceutical industry, defence and environmental monitoring. The proposed technology may open an untraveled path in the successful diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of therapeutic treatment for major diseases such as cancer, immune deficiencies, neurodegenerative diseases, hereditary disorders and cardiovascular diseases.
|
|
Key Findings |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Potential use in non-academic contexts |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Impacts |
|
| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
|
| Date Materialised |
|
|
|
|
Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
| Project URL: |
|
| Further Information: |
|
| Organisation Website: |
http://www.bham.ac.uk |