The Department of Medicine is delighted that Professor Ten Feizi is the recipient of the prestigious 2014 Rosalind Kornfeld Award from The Society for Glycobiology. The Rosalind Kornfeld Award for Lifetime Achievement in Glycobiology was established in 2008 to honour the distinguished scientific career and service to the Society by Dr Rosalind Kornfeld. The award is given by the Society to scientists who have, over their professional lifetimes, made significant contributions with important impact on the field. In Professor Feizi’s case this award is in recognition of her many achievements in the fields of structure analysis, immunology and function of glycans over nearly 50 years.
Imperial successfully recruited Professor Ten Feizi in 1994 when the Northwick Park Campus became affiliated with the College. Her research group was already a leading world centre in glycobiology, notably having established the specificity of human monoclonal antibodies for specific oligosaccharide sequences and the observed programmed changes in expression of blood group-related sequences during embryogenesis, cell differentiation and oncogenesis, research published in Nature that became a seminal publication in the field. The group then went on to introduce neoglycolipid (NGL) technology for lipid-linked oligosaccharide probes and in 2002 this became the first glycoarray system intended to encompass entire glycomes. This is currently the most diverse glycoarray system in the world, revolutionizing the molecular dissection of pathogen-host interactions as well as endogenous recognition systems. Recent highlights are assignments of the host cell receptors for the oncogenic simian virus 40 (SV40) and the pandemic A(H1N1) 2009 influenza virus. In recognition of the importance of this ground-breaking work, Prof Ten Feizi received recognition with membership to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Joanna Thompson
Divisional Manager, Division of Immunology & Inflammation
Department of Medicine