Making complex oligosaccharides

Cum laude for dr. Ivan Gagarinov

Photo by M. Liu

On February 26 2020, Ivan Gagarinov has received a doctorate with the distinction Cum Laude for the development of chemical and chemo-enzymatic methods for the preparation of biologically important oligosaccharides of unprecedented complexity. The performed research is of very high caliber and has resulted in first author publications in the Journal of the American Chemical SocietyAngewandte Chemie and Organic Letters.

 

Ivan was trained in Russia and Australia (by prof. Mark von Itzstein) before starting his PhD with prof. Geert-Jan Boons at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the 木瓜福利影视 of Georgia , Athens, USA. He followed prof. Boons to Utrecht and finished his PhD at the of the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Image from E. Moret, based on 1NNC.pdb

The image shows the anti-influenza drug zanamivir (discovered by prof. Mark von Itzstein in 1989) bound to the neuraminidase N9 protein.