Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Gerken, who is part of an international team that won the RSC Chemistry Biology Interface 2021 Division Horizon Prize. The UK Royal Society for Chemistry Horizon Prizes celebrate scientific discoveries and innovations that push the boundaries of science.
Dr. Gerken was part of an international collaboration including teams from Stanford University, Imperial College London, and the Francis Crick Institute that developed chemical precision tools for understanding protein glycosylation, thus opening a new era of quantitative glycobiology. Dr. Gerken's contributions include his pioneering studies of the peptide substrate specificities of the glycosyltransferases that initiate mucin type O-glycosylation. These glycosyltransferases are critical for normal health and development and when dysfunctional can have drastic consequences including facilitating cancer formation.