That was the 24th ACW
Austrian Carbohydrate Workshop – A success story continues
In its 24th iteration, the Austrian Carbohydrate Workshop underwent some significant changes, and came out stronger than ever. Not only was the role of the National Representative of the “Carbohydrate and Glycoconjugate community” officially handed over from Prof. Paul Kosma (BOKU Vienna) to Prof. Tanja Wroddnigg (TU Graz) but with the TU joining the hosting roster for this annual meeting of the Austrian carbohydrate and glycoconjugate community, the TU with its growing number of carbohydrate groups greatly contributes to the expansion of the Austrian Carbohydrate Network. To take this growing number of groups in the field into account, a social media and web presence initiative was started who will make it easier to get a informative overview of the glyco field in Austria. The web presence under www.austrocarbnet.at will therefore receive a major upgrade soon, so stay tuned.
Not only were the 80+ participants delighted by the locations magnificent roof top view over the historic city center of Vienna and the fantastic weather, but also by the strong scientific program that was presented by PhDs and Post Docs from TU Wien, BOKU, TU Graz, University of Vienna and Czech Academia of Science, covering a broad range of topics, ranging from organic synthesis, to glyco-array technology, chemical biology and carbohydrate analysis, showing the immense diversity of the carbohydrate field. For the first time ever, a small poster session was held which was positively accepted by the audience and is therefore going to stay in the program for future events.
On the first day, the cherry on the scientific cake was the fantastic talk of Prof. Jeroen Codée (University Leiden, The Netherlands) “A sweet twist – How conformation shapes reactivity in glycosylation reactions“ which delighted especially the organic chemists present, as his fundamental work at the interface between computational chemistry and organic synthesis seems to bring stereochemical predicitions of glycosylation reaction outcome into reach in the near future.
The second day started on a high note with the strong interdisciplinary talk of Prof. Fabian Pfrengle „Synthetic plant glycans as tools for cell wall biology“ which gave a good overview of his current work at the MPIKG Potsdam . He will continue his work at the BOKU Vienna as newly appointed successor of Prof. Paul Kosma and clearly showed that BOKU will stay on the forefront of glyco synthesis in Austria.
Traditionally, these events dedicate a good chunk of the meeting time for the networking to grow and expand the network and the 24th iteration did not disappoint. Due to the grateful support of our sponsors TU, BOKU, MAGRITEK, BÜCHI, Reference Analytics, LOBA and GÖCH it was possible to provide generous coffee and beer breaks, which helped to maintain existing, weld new co-operations and friendships und underline the friendly reputation of these meetings.
We are very much looking forward to see you all in Graz in 2021.