The human genome seems to encode for not more than 30,000 to 40,000 proteins. A major challenge is to understand how posttranslational events, such as glycosylation, affect the activities and functions of these proteins in health and disease. The importance of protein glycosylation is becoming widely realized through studies on protein folding, protein localization and trafficking, protein solubility, biological half-life as well as studies on cell-cell interactions. The progressing Glycomics projects will dramatically accelerate the understanding of the roles of carbohydrates in cell communication and lead to novel therapeutic approaches for treatment of human disease. The MIT's magazine of innovation (January 21 2003) has identified Glycomics as one of the top ten technologies that will change the future. To support the upcoming Glycomics projects we [German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg] focus our research activities on the development of bioinformatic tools and databases for glycobiology. ... [Information of the supplier]
