GlycoMIP introduces STEM teachers to glycan modeling tool

Maren Roman, Robert J. Woods

As part of its outreach mission, GlycoMIP (glycomip.org) provided education about glycomaterials to high-school STEM teachers through the Teacher Enrichment Program of the Center for Excellence in Education (www.cee.org).

In a virtual seminar, Director Maren Roman introduced teachers to the GLYCAM-Web (glycam.org) online Carbohydrate Builder modeling tool for generating 3D models of glycans.

Participating teachers received step-by-step instructions on how to:
- Construct the input string describing the disaccharide lactose
- Visualize the 3D structure of lactose
- Measure distances between atoms and angles between bonds
- Download the generated data files

The tool has attracted interest for use in a high-school course on macromolecules.
The education event was made possible by the NSF-funded collaboration between Virginia Tech and the University of Georgia.