Dr. Anne Imberty

Scientific activities:

Dr. Imberty is Research Director at the Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales (CERMAV), affiliated to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) based at Grenoble, France.

She graduated in biology from Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. In 1984, she joined the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Grenoble and did her PhD on starch structure. She started modeling studies of protein-carbohydrate interaction during her post-doc in Toronto. Since 1999, she has a senior research position in CNRS-Grenoble and is the head of the Molecular Glycobiology group. She received the Young Researcher Award of the French Carbohydrate Society in 1990, the Whistler Award of the International Carbohydrate Organization in 2004, and the Charles Dhéré Award in Chemistry from the French Academy of Sciences in 2011. Since 2006, she is associate editor of Glycobiology.

Her research interests are in the field of structural glycobiology, with main interest on biologically active oligosaccharides and their interaction with lectins and glycosyltransferases. She solved several crystal structures of oligosaccharides and of lectin/carbohydrate complexes. Her main interest is the characterization of the molecular basis of recognition between lectins from pathogens and human glycoconjugates and design of glycocompounds with anti-infectious properties.

Her present research projects are centered on lectins from opportunistic bacteria that are involved in the first steps of infection. Structural characterization of these lectins and of their interaction with human glycoconjugates is opening the route for the design of glycocompounds with anti-bacterial activities.