Wayne State University Professor Peng George Wang is being recognized for his groundbreaking research in the area of carbohydrate chemistry, which he hopes will lead to the development of more prescription drugs and vaccines to treat diseases.

Wang received the Horace S. Isbell award at the American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting in Boston on Aug. 18. Wang is credited with developing two methods to produce carbohydrates used in a variety of biomedical research.

Carbohydrates are one of the key fundamental biological materials that sustain animal and human life forms. The other important materials are protein and DNA/RNA. Carbohydrates involve so many important life processes that investigating the mechanism and developing carbohydrate-based drugs and vaccines are considered one of the frontiers of modern biomedical sciences. Wang in his research discovered a way of synthesizing carbohydrates, or complex forms of sugar as they are known in glycobiology, in an efficient and cost effective way.

Wang's laboratory has developed "superbug" and "suberbead" methodology for carbohydrate synthesis. The major obstacle in the development of carbohydrate chemistry and glycobiology is that most biologically important carbohydrates are not available in large quantities due to the high cost of production.

The two methods Wang has developed are akin to a great chef being able to pare down a massive banquet into a gourmet dinner. The gourmet dinner is less expensive but still maintains the key ingredients necessary for a palatable meal.

Wang's superbug essentially transfers the entire natural biosynthetic pathway into an E coli strain (or other microbial strains). The approach includes cloning each enzyme along the biosynthetic pathway and connecting the genes of these enzymes together to produce an artificial gene cluster. A recombinant E. coli transformed with such a gene cluster produces the carbohydrate.

For small- to medium-scale synthesis of carbohydrates, Wang has developed simple solid-phase synthetic systems. He immobilized all the necessary biosynthetic enzymes onto so-called superbeads. These beads function as stable and versatile synthetic reagents, which can be used to synthesize a variety of carbohydrate combinations in cell-free systems.

Established in 1987, the Isbell Award in American Chemical Society recognizes carbohydrate scientists under the age of 41 who have demonstrated excellence in the field and show promise of continuing to make quality contributions to carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry.

Wang received a B.S. in 1984 from Nankai University in China and a Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published more than 123 research papers, reviews, and book chapters, and has submitted six patent applications.