🌉 New from Bioinformatics Advances: “Bridging worlds: Connecting glycan representations with glycoinformatics via universal input and a canonicalized nomenclature.” 

Full article available: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf310

Authors include: @romanjoeres.bsky.social, @dbojar.bsky.social

Grey seal mother nursing a pup on the Isle of May, Scotland Credit: P. Pomeroy SMRU

Research in Nature Communications suggests that Atlantic grey seal milk rivals human breast milk in sugar complexity. These findings challenge the previously held assumption that human milk is uniquely complex amongst mammals. go.nature.com/4p2hYRW 🧪

Seal Milk Is the Cream of the Molecular Crop

Also super excited that we could reach quite a large audience with this, with coverage by major outlets like the New York Times. Team GlycoTime go!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...

Seal milk oligosaccharides rival human milk complexity and exhibit functional dynamics during lactation - Nature Communications Jin et al. discovered Atlantic grey seal milk contains 332 complex sugars, including 166 novel structures. Seal milk rivals human milk complexity, includes giant molecules up to 28 sugar units, change...

Very excited to see this in its final form!
Here's our in-depth exploration of the sequences, dynamics, and functions of grey seal milk oligosaccharides throughout their (brief) lactation period, from a wild colony in Scotland. Full of surprises!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're hiring! 🚀

**PhD positions:**
Computational focus:
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...
Experimental focus:
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...

**Postdoc positions:**
Computational focus:
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...
Experimental focus:
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...

Arcaneering: Beyond Automation on Steam Automate the arcane! Build spell-powered factories, reclaim ancient territories filled with magical secrets, and discover game-changing technology hidden across procedurally generated worlds. Master b...

Here's something non-science-y for a change:
Check out the free demo of my upcoming game on Steam! 🥳
store.steampowered.com/app/3858960/...
(Arcaneering is a cozy factory automation game, with a bit of RPG elements, made in Godot)
#gamedev #indie #pcgaming #automation #basebuilding

Thank you!!:-)

Thrilled to share some news!! We'll be recruiting soon to start with some exciting new work in glycobiology, so watch this space... #ERCStG

📢 Join us for the next GlySpace Alliance Webinar!

🗓️ Tuesday, September 16, 2025 | 10 AM ET
🎙️ @dbojar.bsky.social‬ presents: “Structure, Function and Everything in Between: Glyco-AI goes 3D”
🔗 Info: wiki.glygen.org/GlySpace_All...

#glycotime #bioinformatics #cfde

Happy to share our work about glycan 3D structure!

In a nutshell: a Python package to study how sugars wiggle and structure themselves, the role of their composition, and how this enables relationships with protein partners. And there's AI stuff too!

@dbojar.bsky.social @romanjoeres.bsky.social

One more day left to apply for this position!:-)

(+ watch this space for more open positions coming in the fall 👀)

Both the science and the hiking were fantastic! Thanks so much Anne:-)

We have an open postdoc position; if you want to work both experimentally and computationally in systems biology with a specialization in glycobiology, come join us!:-)
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...

glycowork v1.6 is out & we're now at 1,000 commits in almost 4 years! Next to Universal Input and a better GlycoDraw, we have a faster back-end, bigger&better datasets, more convenience, and so much more
github.com/BojarLab/gly...

Thaank you Elisa!:-)

2) Universal Input lets you use new formats: e.g., GlyTouCan IDs, common names, CSDB-linear, GAGs. All nomenclature support will go to 95-100% (now >10 total) + we even prevent & fix chemical impossibilities. Universal Input will also be in our GUI and at canonicalize.streamlit.app with GlycoDraw!

Thank you!!:-)

A few GlycoDraw-related highlights of the upcoming glycowork v1.6 update (dropping in a few weeks):
- our very own rendering engine (GlycoDraw for the masses, thanks to glycorender!);
- SNFG-gradients;
- automated Alt text;
- reverse-highlighting;
- even more support for highly complex sequences

Seal milk oligosaccharides rival human milk complexity and exhibit functional dynamics during lactation Breast milk oligosaccharides are crucial for neonatal development and health. Yet most milk research focuses on humans, or domesticated mammals that are historically poor in milk oligosaccharide compl...

Here comes the most complex non-human milk glycome! 🥁
>300 milk oligosaccharides in grey seals, analyzed over the lactation period (+metabolomics! +functional experiments!)
Next to increasing known milk glycans by >20% we also present mega-milk glycans (28 sugars!!)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Confronting risks of mirror life Broad discussion is needed to chart a path forward

Thanks to Ratmir Derdra, our #glycotime answer to "The risk of mirror life" appears now under the article in Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
With @glycoexpasy.bsky.social @laurakiessling.bsky.social @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social @molinarotony.bsky.social @dbojar.bsky.social
and many

Confronting risks of mirror life Broad discussion is needed to chart a path forward

Thanks to Ratmir Derda we have an articulate reply to:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
putting glycans back into the picture! @laurakiessling.bsky.social @anneimb.bsky.social @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social @molinarotony.bsky.social @dbojar.bsky.social @siglecdude.bsky.social

glycowork v1.5 is now released! We're excited to see the cool things you'll be doing with it:-)

Lots of new & improved functionality, check out the Release notes for the full change log:

Compositional data analysis enables statistical rigor in comparative glycomics - Nature Communications Bennett et al. develop a statistical approach for analyzing comparative glycomics data that accounts for inherent data dependencies, yielding robust and sensitive results. This approach can identify h...

Glycomics quantitation has a lot of nuances, and this paper discusses a lot about it, and potentially has a solution for it. Congrats to @dbojar.bsky.social and co.! #glycotime
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

last_day == best_day @neuripsconf.bsky.social
The @workshopmlsb.bsky.social is about to start and GIFFLAR will be presented in the poster sessions.
Come for some sweets to the East Meeting Rooms 11 and 12. Poster sessions are at 11:20am and 4pm.
@dbojar.bsky.social #mlsb #NeurIPS2024 #glycotime

Higher-Order Message Passing for Glycan Representation Learning Glycans are the most complex biological sequence, with monosaccharides forming extended, non-linear sequences. As post-translational modifications, they modulate protein structure, function, and inter...

GIFFLAR is this: A GNN based on Higher-Order Message-Passing for Glycan Representation Learning.
Work conducted together with @dbojar.bsky.social

arxiv.org/abs/2409.13467

Our spécial glyco@alps day with a fantastic line of speakers @dbojar.bsky.social Muriel Bardor , Marc Delgado and many others

GitHub - BojarLab/glycowork: Package for processing and analyzing glycans and their role in biology. Package for processing and analyzing glycans and their role in biology. - BojarLab/glycowork

If you're interested in glycobioinformatics in Python (or via a GUI), we've got glycowork for you:-)
It just had its v1.4 update & we develop it since ~3.5 years
You can use it to draw SNFG-glycans, annotate glycan motifs, convert nomenclatures, match compositions to sequences, train AI models, etc

Very cool resource, thanks! Could you also add me to the list?