Glycobiology is the branch of biology concerned with the compounds that contain sugar-based carbohydrate groups. The surfaces of all cells are adorned with a wide range of glycosylated (containing carbohydrate groups) compounds, which play a fundamental role in the interaction of cells with their surroundings and other cells. This places glycobiology at the heart of many disease processes including inflammation, cancer and infectious disease. The understanding of the role of glycobiology in these interactions is limited but growing and there is a huge need to improve the tools available for characterising these interactions. There is also a need to develop products which can interfere with these interations in a beneficial manner, so that they can be applied to the treatment and study of disease. Glycobiology-based therapies available to the clinician, and have the potential to revolutionise the treatment of some diseases.
Marine glycobiology offers the exciting opportunity of an enormous diversity of novel compounds, which differ significantly from mammalian glycobiology. Marine carbohydrates form the basis of the long established alginate (from sea weed) industry, and more recently of a number of nutraceutical products (from sea weed, microalgae, and shrimp waste). This demonstrates the feasibility of a long-term business based on marine glycobiology, and highlights the opportunity to establish a new business exploiting the glycobiology of marine invertebrates. In general, our knowledge of the glycobiology of marine invertebrates is very limited, but this is an indication of the scale of opportunity rather than a stumbling block. GlycoMar specialises in the development of marine glycobiology as a source of novel biopharmaceuticals.
