The sugars that coat the surface of the cell have long fascinated Carolyn Bertozzi, a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. But her study of these complex carbohydrates has had much further reaching implications. Her pioneering work on bioorthogonal chemistry — reactions that can be run in living systems, without damaging them — has opened up basic drug discovery and therapeutic applications alike, for example. In her hands, these chemical tools have led to the creation of new therapeutic modalities including antibody–enzyme conjugates that can reshape the glycocalyx and lysosome-targeting chimaeras (LYTACs) that can degrade membrane-bound and extracellular targets. These, in turn, are helping her to further unravel the role of sugars in biology and in immuno-oncology. Bertozzi has already founded eight companies to advance these and other approaches. More are on the way. Speaking with Asher Mullard, she discussed her work and why drug developers have been so slow to see the sugars on the surface of the cell.
