In the narrowest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biology, and evolution of glycans, the carbohydrates and sugar-coated molecules found in every living organism. As a recent symposium at MIT made clear, the field is in the midst of a renaissance that could reshape scientists’ understanding of the building blocks of life. Originally coined in the 1980s to describe the merging of traditional research in carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry, glycobiology has come to encompass a much broader and multidisciplinary set of ideas. “Glycoscience” may actually be a more…
