Purpose and scope

The Carbohydrate Group is one of the Royal Society of Chemistry's many Interest Groups. The Interest Groups are member driven groups which exist to benefit RSC members, and the wider chemical science community, in line with the RSC's strategy and charter.

Glycotechnology is leading to new products and understanding in biomedicine, firstly via mammalian glycoconjugates and secondly via non-mammalian glycoconjugates and polysaccharides which are potential pharmaceuticals and targets for drug design.

For example, plants and seaweed have oligosaccharides with many pharmacological effects, microbial antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs contain monosaccharide components, and cell walls of micro-organisms are targets for immunotherapy.

Polysaccharides from the agricultural industry are multi-million pound commercial products in many industrial and domestic areas and are set to gain further prominence as green fuel sources and neutraceuticals (health from diet).

Why is Carbohydrate Chemistry Important?

Studies of interactions between carbohydrates and proteins are vital in understanding the potential controls of many biological processes. Nature has invested much time in devising enzymes and receptors which are highly specific in their interactions with carbohydrates.

Orders of magnitude of structural information and diversity can more readily be carried in carbohydrates in comparison with peptides of the same molecular size.

Get involved

Our awards

Haworth Memorial Lectureship

This lecture deals with advances in any area of carbohydrate chemistry, and is delivered in alternate years during the Carbohydrate Chemistry Group's spring meeting.

Dextra Carbohydrate Award

This award, which is sponsored by Dextra Laboratories, is presented to a scientist in the early/mid stage of their career for meritorious work in carbohydrate chemistry that has largely been conducted in the UK.

Early career researcher awards

Our group appreciates the outstanding efforts made by Early Career Researchers in the community. We have two prizes for Best Oral Presentation at our biannual conferences which are awarded to the early career researchers who show research excellence for their career stage. In addition to this, we also have a number of poster prizes at both events.

• The Buchanan Award

  This is presented at the Spring/Summer meeting.

  Previous winners

  • 2024 - Elle Fiandra, Durham University
  • 2022 - Caecilie Benckendorff and Collette Guy
  • 2020 - Jamie Thompson, University of Nottingham
  • 2019 - Mark Reihill, University College Dublin
  • 2016 - Alex Males, University of York
  • 2015 - Barbara Pokorny, BOKU Vienna
  • 2014 - Katie Wilson

   

• The Chris Lawson Biosynth Award

  This is awarded at the Autumn/Winter meeting.

  Previous winners

  • 2024 - Dr Jonathan Dolan, Keele University
  • 2023 - Lorna Milne, University of Nottingham

   

  The Carbohydrate Group Committee would like to thank Biosynth for their long-standing sponsorship of early career researcher awards.

 

Our events

Forthcoming events

View forthcoming events organised by the Carbohydrate Group.

Annual report

Please get in touch with the Networks Team if you would like to be sent a copy of last year’s annual report for the Carbohydrate Group.

Keep in touch

The group issues e-alerts which provides links to group events and other relevant information which may be of interest to you

Benefits of joining this group

• Advance notice of relevant events, meetings and conferences and courses
• Reduced registration fees for meetings
• Networking opportunities
• General info of various topics associated with the interest group and related RSC Subject Communities
• Keeps members up-to-date with current developments within the sector and promotes Continuous Professional Development

Committee

The committee members listed are responsible for designing programmes that will advance chemistry in the subject area, helping the RSC to meet its aims, engaging with and supporting our members.

We are always keen to welcome new members to the committee. When vacancies arise, we circulate a “Call for Committee”, where an email is sent to all members of the group to make them aware of new opportunities to join the committee.

It is important to have diverse representation on committees to consider the needs of our membership. All RSC members are welcome to stand for committee positions when vacancies are advertised.

Glossary for Committee Positions

Acronym	Position
CHAIR	Chair
TREAS	Treasurer
SEC	Secretary
MEM	Member
MEMCO	Co-opted Member

Contact the Committee

For any queries about the interest group, please contact the Committee Secretary using the contact form, accessible via the button below.

Email the Secretary

Contact us

Contact the Networks team with your queries.

Email us