As we already learned in the past weeks, glycoscience is certainly an interdisciplinary subject where both chemistry and biology play a critical role in understanding and success. Steering a ship in these waters is a very complex challenge that needs focus and persistence.

Our guest this week, Barbara Richichi, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florence is a captain on such a ship and will help us understand how carbohydrates could be used as building blocks of complex nanomaterials and how glycomimetics are designed. 

Barbara’s lab (GlycoFluoNano) is engaged in three main areas of Glycoscience that are at the interface between Glycochemistry and Glycobiology, specifically in the: i) synthesis of glycomimetics and glycan-based therapeutics; ii) synthesis and functionalization of glyconanomaterials; and iii) the synthesis of fluorescent probes.