2023 RSC Carbohydrate Dextra Award glory for Dr Benjamin Schumann
By Dr Aisling Ní Cheallaigh, Secretary of the RSC Carbohydrate Group
A leading chemical biologist whose ‘revolutionary’ work is changing the understanding of an entire subject field has been honoured with a prestigious award.
Dr Benjamin Schumann (right) is the winner of the 2023 RSC Carbohydrate Dextra Award, celebrating his ground-breaking research into chemical glycan-based tools in quantitative biology. The award is presented to an early-to-mid-stage scientist for meritorious work in carbohydrate chemistry, largely conducted in the UK.
Nominations for the Dextra Award are evaluated by three international reviewers in the carbohydrate chemistry field. One of the reviewers commented: “Dr Schumann’s independent work is revolutionizing our insights into glycobiology. The chemical tools his lab produces are key to take the next step in our understanding for glycobiology.”
Past winners of this award, which has been sponsored by Dextra Laboratories since 1970, include Nobel Prize winner Fraser Stoddart.
On receiving the award, Dr Schumann said: “I am deeply humbled by receiving the Dextra Award, following so many great leaders in the field. This would not have been possible without my amazing team members, colleagues, and family!”
He will deliver his award lecture and be presented with the Dextra Medal at the RSC Carbohydrate Group winter meeting, which will take place at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, on 1 and 2 November.
Dr Schumann, who is a group leader and senior lecturer at the Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London, has earned acclaim for his talent for using chemistry solutions to tackle biological problems. He has a profound interest in glycans, which are carbohydrate-based polymers made by all living organisms serving structure, energy storage and system regulatory purposes.
His group uses synthetic chemistry to develop glycan-based tools and employ methods of molecular and cell biology to dissect the implications of glycans in health and disease. He has developed a range of novel technologies to solve complex issues surrounding limitations in biolabeling.
Some of his career highlights include the development of chemical tools to probe the activities of glycosyltransferase enzymes in living cells, and bio-orthogonal cell-specific tagging of glycoproteins (BOCTAG) addressing the important need of profiling the glycoproteins biosynthesised by individual cell types in co-culture.
In an international collaboration, his team members have used bioorthogonal chemistry to facilitate mass spectrometry of glycopeptides, for instance through the introduction of a permanent positive charge.
This innovation helped them to unveil an entirely unexpected function of O-linked glycosylation on the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.
More about Dr Benjamin Schumann
Dr Schumann completed his biochemistry undergraduate studies in Tübingen, Germany. He was trained in synthetic carbohydrate chemistry in the lab of Peter H. Seeberger at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces Potsdam and the FU Berlin.
Developing vaccines against pathogenic bacteria based on synthetic glycans, Ben learned to apply his compounds in biological settings in vivo and in vitro. For his achievements, he received the Award for Excellence in Glycosciences and, in 2017, was presented with the prestigious Otto Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society.
His postdoctoral work took place in the lab of Nobel Laureate Carolyn R. Bertozzi at Stanford University as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Feodor Lynen fellow. There, Dr Schumann developed an interest in precision tools to study glycosylation of human cells in detail.
He started as a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London in 2018 and soon developed such tools, using a combination of organic and chemo-enzymatic synthesis, molecular and cell biology and was promoted to senior lecturer in chemistry. His work routinely incorporates recent methods of genome engineering and proteomics.
Dr Schumann has been enormously successful in establishing his group at the forefront of glycobiology. He was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2022 and has also received major grants as a PI from the BBSRC, Cancer Research UK and Prostate Cancer UK.
He is committed to fostering equality, diversity and inclusion and is heavily engaged in promoting the glycosciences community, not only as the single glycoscientist at the UK’s largest biomedical research institute, but also through his engagement in numerous committees and networks. Dr Schumann is an EMBO Young Investigator and has received the Early Career Research Award from the Biochemical Society.
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