Category: Uncategorized

Hannah attended the International Meeting of Young Researchers hosted by InnoGly and GlycoNanoProbes COST Actions in Iasi, Romania in April and presented a talk on Carbohydrate-Functionalised Materials. Joe was part of the organising committee for this meeting, as well.

A few weeks later, in May, Joe spoke at the Closing Meeting of the InnoGly COST Action in Heraklion, Greece, a two-day interdisciplinary symposium of carbohydrate and glycan research, particularly focussed on the role of glycans in health and immunity. His presentation on carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes prompted some interesting discussions with scientist from other disciplines.

We brought the year to a close with a Christmas group lunch in Hyde, Galway. We also celebrated the completion of the fourth year undergraduate research projects. Shivon Karundu, who carried out her project in our lab celebrated with classmates at the research poster session in the School. Well done on a productive year!

In a busy summer, Joe presented his work in talks at the Molecular Sensors and Logic Gates Meeting (Dublin) and European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Symposium (Grenoble), while Karolina gave an oral presentation at the International Carbohydrate Symposium. Through these presentations, the team have been able to share their latest results from the SFI-funded project with various audiences and field questions and suggestions. Our interdisciplinary work involves using carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes to sense bacterial proteins. With two years of no international conferences, it has been more valuable than ever to share our results with colleagues and catch up on other developments in the various fields of interest to our work.

• Invited talk: “Sweetness and Light: Luminescent tools for sensing bacterial carbohydrate-binding proteins”, Joseph Byrne, 7th International Conference on Molecular Sensors and Molecular Logic Gates, 15 July 2022 (Dublin, Ireland) [Programme]
• Oral presentation: “Shining a Light on Bacteria : Lanthanide- based Glycoconjugate Molecular Sensors for Lectins”, Karolina Wojtczak, 30th International Carbohydrate Symposium, 13 July 2022 (Online) [Programme]
• Oral presentation: “Carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes: targeting bacterial carbohydrate-binding proteins for therapeutic and diagnostic applications”, Joseph Byrne, 16th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Symposium, 20 July 2022 (Grenoble, France) [Programme]

A new article from Joe’s Marie Curie Fellowship in Bern reports the catalytic activity of carbohydrate-N-heterocyclic carbene hybrid iridium complexes, which can hydrogenate ketones with modest enantiomeric induction (depending on the carbohydrate geometry).

“Carbohydrate-functionalized triazolylidene iridium complexes: hydrogenation catalysis in water with asymmetric induction” was published in ChemCatChem, as part of a special collection on Carbohydrate Chemistry and catalysis.

The article can be read here: 10.1002/cctc.202200086

To celebrate the end of the year, the group all joined for a Christmas lunch before the end of term. Thanks to Karol, Rosy, Ioannis, Tiernan and Patrick for all the hard work in the lab in 2021.