Bruce Turnbull

Research section: Organic Chemistry

KEYWORDS Carbohydrate Chemistry Protein-Carbohydrate Interactions Multivalent Interactions Synthetic Biology

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My interests lie at the interface of carbohydrate chemistry and molecular glycobiology. In our work we combine synthetic chemistry and biophysical techniques to study carbohydrate-binding proteins. Although such interactions are essential for many normal biological processes, they also facilitate viral and bacterial infection, cancer metastasis, and entry into cells by bacterial toxin proteins. We are investigating the interactions between cholera toxin and cell surface oligosaccharides, and using this information to design small molecule inhibitors of cholera toxin using fragment-based approaches. We are also studying the mechanisms by which this pentavalent protein interacts with large multivalent inhibitors based on dendrimers. We aim to harness these multivalent aggregation processes to create novel nanoscale materials. Although much of our work is directed towards understanding biology at the molecular level, synthetic chemistry remains our major research activity. We are developing novel methods for the stereoselective synthesis of oligosaccharides and investigating the mechanisms of neighbouring group participation in carbohydrate chemistry.

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Research           

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

S. A. Stalford, C. A. Kilner, A. G. Leach, and W. B. Turnbull, Neighbouring group participation vs. addition to oxacarbenium ions: studies on the synthesis of mycobacterial oligosaccharides, Org. Biomol. Chem. 2009, 7, 4842-4852

M. A. Fascione, S. J. Adshead, S. A. Stalford, C. A. Kilner, A. G. Leach, and W. B. Turnbull, Stereoselective glycosylation using oxathiane glycosyl donors, Chem. Commun. 2009, 5841-5843

C. Sisu, A. J. Baron, H. M. Branderhorst, S. D. Connell, C. A. G. M. Weijers, R. de Vries, E. D. Hayes, A. V. Pukin, M. Gilbert, R. J. Pieters, H. Zuilhof, G. M. Visser, and W. B. Turnbull, The influence of ligand valency on aggregation mechanisms for inhibiting bacterial toxins, ChemBioChem 2009, 10, 329-337

W. B. Turnbull, B. L. Precious and S. W. Homans, Dissecting the cholera toxin-ganglioside GM1 interaction by isothermal titration calorimetry, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 1047-1054.