Xuefei Huang

The chemistry of carbohydrates and their biology is the major emphasis of our research. Carbohydrates play important roles in many biological processes such as inflammation, tumor metastasis, bacterial and viral infections. Detailed understanding of many of these processes is still lacking. Building on our strength in synthetic chemistry, we take a multi-disciplinary approach to study this important class of molecules. Our research encompasses several areas including synthetic organic chemistry, nanoscience and chemical immunology.

In the immunology area, harnessing the awesome power of body’s immune system to fight cancer is an attractive strategy to cancer treatment. Vaccination with our constructs successfully protected the immunized mice from tumor development in several tumor models. This is an excitingly new direction for the development of anti-cancer vaccines.

In our nanoscience program, we combine the multifaceted properties of carbohydrates with the unique functions of nanoparticles by immobilizing carbohydrates onto the external surface of magnetic nanoparticles. We are continuing to develop magnetic glyco-nanoparticles for non-invasive detection and treatment of diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

In the synthetic chemistry area, we are developing novel methodologies for assembling biologically active oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates.