Carbohydrates Commons^™

Synthesis Of Glycopharmaceuticals For The Treatment Of Microbial Sepsis, Nicholas Forsythe, Alexei Demchenko, Catherine Alex

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Carbohydrates (glycans) form the basis of all living organisms and, consequently, are ubiquitous both in nature as biologically active compounds and in medicine as pharmaceuticals. One important application of carbohydrate-based drugs (glycopharmaceuticals) is the treatment of microbial sepsis, an acute illness that causes 100,000+ human deaths annually in the US alone. Exposure of the patient’s blood system to E. coli bacteria causes a massive, and often fatal, immune response. One important cellular receptor that senses the bacterium and is critically involved in triggering the immune response is CD14. Significant efforts by our team and others have been made to develop …