Dr. Geert-Jan Boons
Franklin Professor of Chemistry
Dr. Boons received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Synthetic Carbohydrate Chemistry in 1991 from the State University of Leiden (Netherlands). Prior to joining the faculty at the CCRC in 1998, he spent seven years in the United Kingdom, first as a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College, London, and the University of Cambridge, and then as a lecturer and professor at the University of Birmingham. In 2003, Dr. Boons was awarded the Carbohydrate Research Award for Creativity in Carbohydrate Science by the European Carbohydrate Association. Also in 2003, he was elected chairman for the 2005 Gordon Research Conference on Carbohydrates. He serves on the editorial boards of Carbohydrate Research , the Journal of Carbohydrate Chemistry , and Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2004, Dr. Boons received the Horace Isbell Award by the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and was appointed Franklin Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia.
The research of the Boons Group deals with the synthesis and biological functions of carbohydrates and glycocongugates. The diversity of topics to which the group has significantly contributed include the development of new and better methods for synthesizing exceptionally complex molecules, the use of new methods in the synthesis and study of properties of complex carbohydrates of increasing size and complexity, the development of synthetic cancer and bacterial vaccines, the design and synthesis of glycosidase inhibitors and the use of synthetic compounds for the study of innate immunity.
Selected Publications
Arungundram, S., K. Al.Mafraji, J. Asong, F.E. Leach III, I.J. Amster, A. Venot, J.E. Turnbull, and G.J. Boons. 2009. Modular synthesis of heparan sulfate oligosaccharides for structure-activity relatioship studies. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131(47): 17394-17405.
Ingale, S. M.A. Wolfert, T. Buskas, and G.J. Boons. 2009. Increasing the antigenicity of synthetic tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens by targeting Toll-like receptors. ChemBioChem. 10: 455-463.
Ning, X., J. Guo, M.A. Wolfert, and G.J.Boons. 2008. Visualizing metabolically-labeled glycoconjugates of living cells by copper-free and fast Huisgen cycloadditions. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed . 47(12): 2253-2255. Selected as a VIP paper.
Ingale, S., M.A. Wolfert, J. Gaekwad, T. Buskas, and G.J. Boons. 2007. Robust immune responses elicited by a fully synthetic three-component vaccine. Nature Chem. Biol. 3 (10): 663-667.
Rao, Y., and G.J. Boons. 2007. A highly convergent chemical synthesis of conformational epitopes of Rhamnogalacturonan II. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 119 (32): 6260-6263.
Zhang, Y., J. Gaekwad, M.A. Wolfert, and G.J. Boons . 2007. Modulation of innate immune responses with synthetic lipid A derivatives. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129 (16): 5200-5216.
Mehta, A., E. Saile, W. Zhong, T. Buskas, R. Carlson, E. Kannenberg, Y. Reed, C.P. Quinn, and G.J. Boons. 2006. Synthesis and antigenic analysis of the Bc1A glycoprotein oligosaccharide from Bacillus anthracis exosporium. Chem. Eur. J. 12 (36): 9136-9149.
Zhu, X., S. Kawatkar, Y. Rao, and G.J. Boons. 2006. A practical approach for the stereoselective introduction of alpha-arabinofuranosides. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 128 (36): 11948-11957.
Guo, J., J. Asong, and G.J. Boons. 2006. Selective inhibition of glycosidases by feedback prodrugs. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 45: 5345-5348.
Kawatkar, S., D.A. Kuntz, R.J. Woods, D.R. Rose, and G.J. Boons. 2006. The structural basis of the inhibition of Golgi alpha-mannosidase II by mannostatin A and the role of the thiomethyl moiety in protein ligand interactions. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 128 (25): 8310-8319.
Kumar, S., A. Roychowdhury, B. Ember, Q. Wang, R. Guan, R.A. Mariuzza, and G.J. Boons. 2005. Selective recognition of synthetic lysine and meso diaminopimelic acid-type peptidoglycan fragments by human peptidoglycan recognition protein-Ialpha and -S. J. Biol. Chem. 280 (44): 37005-37012.
Buskas, T., S. Ingale, and G.J. Boons. 2005. Towards a fully synthetic carbohydrate-based anti-cancer vaccine: synthesis and immunological evaluation of a lipidated glycopeptide containing the tumor-associated Tn-antigen. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 44: 5985-5988.
Kim, J.H., H. Yang, J. Park, and G.J. Boons. 2005. A general strategy for stereoselective glycosylations. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 127: 12090-12097.
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