Welcome to Carolyn Bertozzi’s laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We are part of the departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, the Molecular Foundry and the Materials Sciences and Physical Biosciences Divisions at LBNL, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Our research group studies cell surface interactions that contribute to human health and disease with specific projects in the areas of cancer, inflammation, and bacterial infection. We use the techniques of organic synthesis, genetics, and biochemistry as tools to study and manipulate complex cellular processes.

Much of our research involves cell surface oligosaccharides, biopolymers that contribute to cell surface recognition and cell-cell communication and that pose challenging synthetic targets. The biology of these structures, which are found as common posttranslational modifications of cell surface proteins, has attracted increasing attention since the initial sequence of the human genome was reported. Genome comparisons have revealed that the human genome is not much larger than those of lower organisms, but vastly more abundant in posttranslational machinery, accounting for numerous complex functions found only in mammals.

This site is maintained by Karen Dehnert. Send questions or comments by email.