Developing cutting edge chemical and systems biology tools to understand glycosylation in human health and disease.
Our current and ongoing research interests can be categorized into three main categories:
- miRNA Proxy Approach
- Host-Pathogen Glycomics
- Cancer Glycomics
miRNA Proxy Approach
Identifying and leveraging glycan-control mechanisms to decode the functional glycome.
Host-Pathogen Glycomics
Determining the roles of glycans in host-pathogen interactions and host response.
Dr. Lara Mahal is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics
One of 15 current chairholders, acknowledged as a world leader in glycomics since 2019.
For the past 17 years, the Mahal Lab has been on the leading edge of creating and utilizing systems-based approaches to decode the glycome. In 2005, we created lectin microarray technology – a simple, yet powerful tool to profile the glycosylation of complex samples. Our integration of the glycome with other data has led to insights in cancer metastasis, a new understanding of glycan regulation via miRNA, and a new hypothesis on the role of miRNA in identifying functionally relevant genes – the miRNA proxy approach.
Discovering Novel Health Solutions through Glycomics Research
Our lab utilizes systems-based approaches to identify the role of glycosylation in human health and disease.
Glycans, also known as carbohydrates, oligosaccharides, or sugars, are now understood to be pivotal in nearly all biological processes and could be part of novel solutions to many health problems. For example, the ABO blood group system is based on different glycan structures and impacts the compatibility of blood transfusions, transplants, and even COVID-19 susceptibility.
Mahal Lab News
Keep up with the latest lab news and share in our excitement for glycoscience.
Paper on the role of glycosylation in vaccine response published
Congratulations to Ric & our collaborators on publishing this paper in the Journal of Proteome Research! Read on at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.2c00251#.Yrn5d3-pkQg.twitter
Mahal Lab members participated in the Canadian Glycomics Symposium in Banff
Great job, team! And congrats to Faezeh for your outstanding poster award!
Dr. Mahal is featured in a new Nature article on the challenges women face in STEM
Read more at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01204-1, featuring a photo taken by Tabea
Paper on host glycomic response to bacterial sepsis published
Congrats to Shuhui and our collaborators on publishing this at ACS Infectious Diseases, read more at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsinfecdis.2c00082
Congratulations to Dr. Shuhui Chen on completing her Ph.D.!
You pulled off your thesis defense with an excellent presentation! Great work!
Paper on lectin specificity published
Our paper using Machine Learning to detail the specificity of commercially available lectins is now published at ACS Chemical Biology. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acschembio.1c00689