The Frederican Department of Chemical Sciences hosts 'Glytunes' project

Glytunes is called the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks project that will be coordinated by Professor Alba Silipo of the Department of Chemical Sciences at the Federico II University.

The €3.7 million project focuses on the study of eukaryotic and prokaryotic glycans containing sialic acids, their interaction with immune proteins and the synthesis of glycomimetics of therapeutic interest. The network consists of 11 partners, including 7 academic, 4 Industrial and includes 6 European countries (Ita, UK, Fra, Ger, Ola, Spa). The project will be executed through the training and scientific research of 14 PhDs funded by the ITN project.

The H2020 ITN-ETN, Innovative Training Network-Excellence Training Network, projects reward innovative and excellent research to be executed with a European network hosting PhDs from any country. Given the high competitiveness, the percentage of funded projects of such project proposals is very low, around 3 percent.

Professor Silipo was recently awarded the Carbohydrate Research Award for creativity and outstanding research in the field of Carbohydrate Chemistry. This award is given by the editorial board of a prestigious and historic international scientific journal and had never before been given to an Italian scientist in the field of carbohydrate chemistry.

The GLYTUNES project is part of the carbohydrate chemistry studies that the SSCN group of the Department of Chemical Sciences is involved in, it follows the success of an ERC starting grant project awarded to Dr. Marchetti(GLYCOSWITCH) and other H2020 ITN-ETN projects that Professor Antonio Molinaro, in the same group, has benefited from in recent years.