|
Mission The mission of the Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG) is to: and glycan-binding proteins that impact human health and disease Organization 
The CFG comprises three major components: the Steering Committee, the Scientific Cores, and the Participating Investigators. Each major component of the CFG interacts directly with the other two. Steering Committee The Steering Committee, led by Richard Cummings at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, sets the scientific direction of the CFG, and ensures that information and resources generated by the program are disseminated efficiently within the Consortium and to the public. Scientific Cores The CFG currently has two Scientific Cores, the Bioinformatics Core (formerly Core B) and the Protein-Glycan Interaction Core (formerly Core H). Each Core is overseen by a Coordinator and a Core Director who is responsible for the Core's day-to-day operations. The Bioinformatics Core provides the community with integrated databases and specialized analytical tools to advance glycomics research and facilitate data mining. These resources are freely available through the CFG's website, the CFG Functional Glycomics Gateway. Visit the left-hand menu or use the home page search box to access data that has been generated by the CFG and to use the CFG Molecule Pages, which offer information about glycans, glycan-binding proteins and glycosyltransferases. The Protein-Glycan Interaction Core screens glycan-binding proteins and other samples for binding to hundreds of diverse mammalian glycans on a slide-based glycan microarray created by the CFG. As well as the Core facilities, the CFG maintains a Reagent Bank of glycans, antibodies and enzymes. Resource requests for glycan array screening or materials from the Reagent Bank may be submitted online. From 2001-2011, the CFG also created and distributed mutant mouse strains and offered glyco-gene microarray screening, glycan profiling, and mutant mouse phenotyping services. For more information, visit the Resources page. Participating Investigators The third component of the CFG is comprised of the Participating Investigators, each of whom has a program of funded research within the scope of the Consortium. In return for resources, Participating Investigators agree to accept responsibility for submitting resulting data to the CFG database. Investigators interested in joining the CFG as a Participating Investigator are encouraged to fill out an application posted on the CFG website. All qualified investigators are accepted as members. Participating Investigators are divided into Subgroups based on the relevance of their research to the GBP families that are the focus of the CFG. These Subgroups foster communication and collaboration among investigators working on common problems, and help the CFG define priorities in order to accelerate progress in specific sub-fields. |
