Nicki Packer

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Nicki Packer (also known as Nicolle Packer) FRSC is an Australian college professor and researcher. She currently serves as a distinguished professor of glycoproteomics in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University and principal research leader at Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics. Packer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and in 2021 received the Distinguished Achievement in Proteomic Sciences Award from the Human Proteome Organization. [1] Her research focuses on biological functional of glycoconjugates by linking glycomics with proteomics and bioinformatics.

Contents

Career

Packer's research focuses on glycoconjugates, a topic at the intersection of chemistry and biological sciences which aims to identify and study the function of the collection of glycoproteins, glycolipids and proteoglycans in cells and on cell surfaces. Her research program examines the structure, function and role of glycans in cancer and microbial infections, as well as their application in therapeutics. [2]

Packer started her research career with a PhD from the University of Sydney in 1978. [3] In 1999 she co-founded Proteome Systems Limited, an Australian biotech company which developed glycoanalytical technology and informatics tools. Packer became a professor at Macquarie University in 2007 and in 2017 became a distinguished professor and also became the principal research leader at the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University. [2]

Packer is academic lead of the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility at Macquarie University. [4] In 2017 Packer co-founded the Human Glycoproteomics Initiative (HGI) as part of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) [5] and the Australian Glycoscience Society Glyco@Oz in 2019 to connect Australian glycoscientists. [6] She was deputy director of Macquarie University's Biomolecular Discovery Research Centre. [7]

Packer has had multiple roles in ARC-funded research centres, including:

Awards and prizes

Packer's awards and prizes include:

Media

Packer's glycoproteomics work has been reported in The Toronto Star, [18] The Age, [19] BioSpectrum Asia [20] and by the Royal Society of Chemistry. [21] Her work with The Australian biotechnology company Proteome Systems was reported in the New York Times. [22] Packer's work on the role of sugars in a wide range of human diseases was featured in the Macquarie University publication, The Lighthouse. [23]

Publications

Packer has published over 250 journal articles and book chapters, has over 12,000 citations and has an h-index of 61 (as at April 2022). [24] Packer is an editor of the textbook Essentials of Glycobiology. [25]

Selected journal articles

Related Research Articles

Glycomics is the comprehensive study of glycomes, including genetic, physiologic, pathologic, and other aspects. Glycomics "is the systematic study of all glycan structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of glycobiology. The term glycomics is derived from the chemical prefix for sweetness or a sugar, "glyco-", and was formed to follow the omics naming convention established by genomics and proteomics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glycome</span> Complete set of all sugars, free or bound, in an organism.

A glycome is the entire complement or complete set of all sugars, whether free or chemically bound in more complex molecules, of an organism. An alternative definition is the entirety of carbohydrates in a cell. The glycome may in fact be one of the most complex entities in nature. "Glycomics, analogous to genomics and proteomics, is the systematic study of all glycan structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of glycobiology.

Defined in the narrowest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biosynthesis, and biology of saccharides that are widely distributed in nature. Sugars or saccharides are essential components of all living things and aspects of the various roles they play in biology are researched in various medical, biochemical and biotechnological fields.

Glycosylation is the reaction in which a carbohydrate, i.e. a glycosyl donor, is attached to a hydroxyl or other functional group of another molecule in order to form a glycoconjugate. In biology, glycosylation usually refers to an enzyme-catalysed reaction, whereas glycation may refer to a non-enzymatic reaction.

The terms glycans and polysaccharides are defined by IUPAC as synonyms meaning "compounds consisting of a large number of monosaccharides linked glycosidically". However, in practice the term glycan may also be used to refer to the carbohydrate portion of a glycoconjugate, such as a glycoprotein, glycolipid, or a proteoglycan, even if the carbohydrate is only an oligosaccharide. Glycans usually consist solely of O-glycosidic linkages of monosaccharides. For example, cellulose is a glycan composed of β-1,4-linked D-glucose, and chitin is a glycan composed of β-1,4-linked N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Glycans can be homo- or heteropolymers of monosaccharide residues, and can be linear or branched.

Richard D. Cummings is an American biochemist who is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He also the chief of the division of surgical sciences within the department of surgery. He is the director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Glycoscience, director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics, and also founder of the Glycomics Core at BIDMC. As of 2018 Cummings is also the scientific director of the Feihi Nutrition Laboratory at BIDMC. Before moving to BIDMC/HMS, Cummings was the William Patterson Timmie Professor and chair of the department of biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia from 2006 to 2015. At Emory, Cummings was a founder in 2007 of the Emory Glycomics Center.

Glycoinformatics is a field of bioinformatics that pertains to the study of carbohydrates involved in protein post-translational modification. It broadly includes database, software, and algorithm development for the study of carbohydrate structures, glycoconjugates, enzymatic carbohydrate synthesis and degradation, as well as carbohydrate interactions. Conventional usage of the term does not currently include the treatment of carbohydrates from the better-known nutritive aspect.

Ajit Varki is a physician-scientist who is distinguished professor of medicine and cellular and molecular medicine, founding co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and founding co-director of the UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). He is also executive editor of the textbook Essentials of Glycobiology and distinguished visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore. He is a specialist advisor to the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee.

Anne Dell is an Australian biochemist specialising in the study of glycomics and the carbohydrate structures that modify proteins. Anne's work could be used to figure out how pathogens such as HIV are able to evade termination by the immune system which could be applied toward understanding how this occurs in fetuses. Her research has also led to the development of higher sensitivity mass spectroscopy techniques which have allowed for the better studying of the structure of carbohydrates. Anne also established GlycoTRIC at Imperial College London, a research center that allows for glycobiology to be better understood in biomedical applications. She is currently Professor of Carbohydrate Biochemistry and Head of the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. Dell's other contributions to the study of Glycobiology are the additions she has made to the textbook "Essentials of Glycobiology" Dell was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

Translational glycobiology or applied glycobiology is the branch of glycobiology and glycochemistry that focuses on developing new pharmaceuticals through glycomics and glycoengineering. Although research in this field presents many difficulties, translational glycobiology presents applications with therapeutic glycoconjugates, with treating various bone diseases, and developing therapeutic cancer vaccines and other targeted therapies. Some mechanisms of action include using the glycan for drug targeting, engineering protein glycosylation for better efficacy, and glycans as drugs themselves.

UniCarb-DB is a structural and mass spectrometric database used in glycomics. UniCarb-DB provides over 1000 LC-MS/MS spectra for N- and O-linked glycans released from glycoproteins that were manually annotated. Each entry contains reference to published work, information about structure, GlyToucan Accession Number, MS/MS fragmentation with complete peak lists, biological contexts and experimental metadata. The database was created by a collaboration between University of Gothenburg and Macquarie University and since November 2016 is hosted by Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics. The database is the first to implement the Minimum Information standard MIRAGE for submission of glycomic MS/MS data into the database.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbohydrate Structure Database</span>

Carbohydrate Structure Database (CSDB) is a free curated database and service platform in glycoinformatics, launched in 2005 by a group of Russian scientists from N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences. CSDB stores published structural, taxonomical, bibliographic and NMR-spectroscopic data on natural carbohydrates and carbohydrate-related molecules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Center for Functional Glycomics</span>

The National Center for Functional Glycomics is an organization that is focused on the development of technology development in glycosciences. They are specifically focused on glycan analysis and molecular mechanisms of glycan recognition by proteins important in human biology and disease. The center was established at Emory University in 2013 with $5.5 million funding by National Institutes of Health under the leadership of Richard D. Cummings. The center moved to Harvard University in September 2015 and is currently located at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston Massachusetts. The center is affiliated with the Consortium for Functional Glycomics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paucimannosylation</span> Protein Paucimannosylation

In biochemistry, paucimannosylation is an enzymatic post-translational modification involving the attachment of relatively simple mannose (Man) and N-Acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) containing carbohydrates (glycans) to proteins. The paucimannosidic glycans may also be modified with other types of monosaccharides including fucose (Fuc) and xylose (Xyl) depending on the species, tissue and cell origin.

The Minimum Information Required About a Glycomics Experiment (MIRAGE) initiative is part of the Minimum Information Standards and specifically applies to guidelines for reporting on a glycomics experiment. The initiative is supported by the Beilstein Institute for the Advancement of Chemical Sciences. The MIRAGE project focuses on the development of publication guidelines for interaction and structural glycomics data as well as the development of data exchange formats. The project was launched in 2011 in Seattle and set off with the description of the aims of the MIRAGE project.

Glycan arrays, like that offered by the Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG), National Center for Functional Glycomics (NCFG) and Z Biotech, LLC, contain carbohydrate compounds that can be screened with lectins, antibodies or cell receptors to define carbohydrate specificity and identify ligands. Glycan array screening works in much the same way as other microarray that is used for instance to study gene expression DNA microarrays or protein interaction Protein microarrays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symbol Nomenclature For Glycans</span>

The Symbol Nomenclature For Glycans (SNFG) is a community-curated standard for the depiction of simple monosaccharides and complex carbohydrates (glycans) using various colored-coded, geometric shapes, along with defined text additions. It is hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the NCBI-Glycans Page. It is curated by an international groups of researchers in the field that are collectively called the SNFG Discussion Group. The overall goal of the SNFG is to:

  1. Facilitate communications and presentations of monosaccharides and glycans for researchers in the Glycosciences, and for scientists and students less familiar with the field.
  2. Ensure uniform usage of the nomenclature in the literature, thus helping to ensure scientific accuracy in journal and online publications.
  3. Continue to develop the SNFG and its applications to aid wider use by the scientific community.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles E. Warren</span> American glycobiologist (1962–2005)

Charles E. Warren was an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of New Hampshire.

Glycan nomenclature is the systematic naming of glycans, which are carbohydrate-based polymers made by all living organisms. In general glycans can be represented in (i) text formats, these include commonly used CarbBank, IUPAC name, and several other types; and (ii) symbol formats, these are consisting of Symbol Nomenclature For Glycans and Oxford Notations.

Catherine E. Costello is the William Fairfield Warren distinguished professor in the department of biochemistry, Cell Biology and Genomics, and the director of the Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry at the Boston University School of Medicine.

References

  1. 1 2 "HUPO - HUPO Awards - 2021 Recipients". hupo.org. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 "Nicki Packer". Macquarie University. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  3. ↑ Packer, Nicolle (1978). "Morphogenesis and lipids of the yeast Trigonopsis variabilis". University of Sydney. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Administration. "Staff Profiles". Macquarie University. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  5. ↑ "HUPO - Human Glycoproteomics Initiative". www.hupo.org. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  6. ↑ "About Us". Glyco@Oz. 19 January 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  7. ↑ Administration. "Our people". Macquarie University. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  8. ↑ "Distinguished Prof Nicolle Packer". Faab Australia. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  9. ↑ "About Us". ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  10. ↑ "Prof Nicki Packer – ARC Centre for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science" . Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  11. ↑ "Our People". CNBP. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Grant - Grants Data Portal". dataportal.arc.gov.au. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  13. ↑ "APS Awards". Australasian Proteomics Society. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  14. ↑ "New Distinguished Professors announced | This Week At Macquarie University" . Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  15. 1 2 Administration. "News and events". Macquarie University. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  16. ↑ "Past MCP ASBMB Award Winners". www.glycobiology.org. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  17. ↑ "A celebration of world-leading research with world-changing impact | This Week At Macquarie University" . Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  18. ↑ "A week's worth of science news". The Toronto Star. 29 April 2007. ISSN   0319-0781 . Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  19. ↑ "Think tank". The Age. 11 July 2005. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  20. ↑ "Patrys' cancer diagnostic gets Australian govt grant". www.biospectrumasia.com. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  21. ↑ "Editor Viewpoints: Unlocking the cell's sugary secrets". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  22. ↑ Rosenthal, Elisabeth (5 September 2005). "Antidoping Agency Seeks Test for EPO That Is Definitive". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  23. ↑ Administration (22 March 2018). "Sugar is involved in almost all human diseases, new research". The Lighthouse. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  24. ↑ "Scopus preview - Packer, Nicolle - Author details - Scopus". www.scopus.com. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  25. ↑ Varki, A.; Cummings, R. D.; Esko, J. D.; Stanley, P.; Hart, G. W.; Aebi, M.; Mohnen, D.; Kinoshita, T.; Packer, N. H.; Prestegard, J. H.; Schnaar, R. L.; Seeberger, P. H. (2022). Varki, Ajit; Cummings, Richard D.; Esko, Jeffrey D.; Stanley, Pamela; Hart, Gerald W.; Aebi, Markus; Mohnen, Debra; Kinoshita, Taroh; Packer, Nicolle H. (eds.). Essentials of Glycobiology (4th ed.). Cold Spring Harbor (NY): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. doi:10.1101/9781621824213 (inactive 31 January 2024). ISBN   978-1-62182-421-3. PMID   35536922.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link)
  26. ↑ Oliveira, Tiago; Thaysen-Andersen, Morten; Packer, Nicolle H.; Kolarich, Daniel (27 August 2021). "The Hitchhiker's guide to glycoproteomics". Biochemical Society Transactions. 49 (4): 1643–1662. doi:10.1042/BST20200879. ISSN   0300-5127. PMC   8421054 . PMID   34282822.
  27. ↑ Varki, Ajit; Cummings, Richard D; Aebi, Markus; Packer, Nicole H; Seeberger, Peter H; Esko, Jeffrey D; Stanley, Pamela; Hart, Gerald; Darvill, Alan; Kinoshita, Taroh; Prestegard, James J (December 2015). "Symbol Nomenclature for Graphical Representations of Glycans". Glycobiology. 25 (12): 1323–1324. doi:10.1093/glycob/cwv091. ISSN   0959-6658. PMC   4643639 . PMID   26543186.
  28. ↑ Jensen, Pia H; Karlsson, Niclas G; Kolarich, Daniel; Packer, Nicolle H (July 2012). "Structural analysis of N- and O-glycans released from glycoproteins". Nature Protocols. 7 (7): 1299–1310. doi:10.1038/nprot.2012.063. ISSN   1754-2189. PMID   22678433. S2CID   20516889.
  29. ↑ Cooper, Catherine A.; Gasteiger, Elisabeth; Packer, Nicolle H. (February 2001). <340::aid-prot340>3.0.co;2-b "GlycoMod - A software tool for determining glycosylation compositions from mass spectrometric data". Proteomics. 1 (2): 340–349. doi:10.1002/1615-9861(200102)1:2<340::aid-prot340>3.0.co;2-b. ISSN   1615-9853. PMID   11680880. S2CID   8712883.
  30. ↑ Thaysen-Andersen, Morten; Kolarich, Daniel; Packer, Nicolle H. (2021). "Glycomics & Glycoproteomics: From Analytics to Function". Molecular Omics. 17 (1): 8–10. doi: 10.1039/D0MO90019B . hdl: 10072/400201 . ISSN   2515-4184. PMID   33295916. S2CID   228078995.
  31. ↑ York, William S; Mazumder, Raja; Ranzinger, Rene; Edwards, Nathan; Kahsay, Robel; Aoki-Kinoshita, Kiyoko F; Campbell, Matthew P; Cummings, Richard D; Feizi, Ten; Martin, Maria; Natale, Darren A (28 January 2020). "GlyGen: Computational and Informatics Resources for Glycoscience". Glycobiology. 30 (2): 72–73. doi:10.1093/glycob/cwz080. ISSN   1460-2423. PMC   7335483 . PMID   31616925.
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