As part of its outreach mission, GlycoMIP provided education about glycomaterials to high-school STEM teachers through the Teacher Enrichment Program of the Center for Excellence in Education.
GlycoMIP’s second annual summer school was held in the VT GlycoMIP facility June 13-17, 2022. A diverse group of 22 academic and industry scientists from 11 different universities and companies participated in the program.
As part of Virginia Tech's Fralin Life Sciences Institute (FLSI), GlycoMIP supported its first Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, SURF, in 2021. A 10-week, 40-hours per week program of research and professional development activities, SURF offers motivated undergraduate students a glimpse of graduate research.
The GlycoMIP User Facility at Virginia Tech supported the research of Dr. Brandon Jutras, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech and frontier researcher in understanding, detecting and eradicating Lyme disease. Dr. Jutras has published high-impact article in Nature Microbiology revealing the glycan composition of the Lyme disease spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi’s cell wall.
The GlycoMIP User Facility at Virginia Tech is supporting the work of Dr. Brandon Jutras, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at VT in characterizing a novel glycan in the cell wall of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease. The findings described in the paper are important for understanding how glycan composition imparts dramatic biophysical changes in cell wall flexibility, elasticity and shape, which are ultimately reflected in bacterial motility and survival.
GlycoMIP's first summer school was far-reaching Using a Zoom webinar format, 15 instructors from across the world offered lectures in their areas of expertise. Program content aligned directly with the synthesis, analysis and modeling services of GlycoMIP's user facility.
National Science Foundation
Division of Materials Research
2415 Eisenhower Avenue
Alexandria, VA 22314
