| Citation | Dwek is nationally and internationally recognised for his fundamental work in glycobiology. Initial studies around 1980 by Kobata had showed that it was possible to sequence oligosaccharides but the methods were laborious. Dwek modified these hydrazine methods and then developed them into very fast, fully automated procedures for the analysis of picomolar quantities. Today using an array of hydrolytic enzymes followed by HPLC techniques, even femtomolar amounts of oligosaccharides are analysed completely employing manufactured equipment developed by Dwek. His own research includes studies of (1) antibody glycosides especially in diseased states such as rheumatoid arthritis (2) cell specific glycoforms and (3) glycosylation modification, using inhibitors, to probe the functions of proteins such as certain chaperones and enzymes. Specific analyses involve the patterns of saccharides associated with Thy-1 antigen, plasminogen activator, and the M-surface antigen. Dwek received the Wellcome award for research in Biochemistry related to Medicine in 1994 in recognition of the fact that his technical developments and his research have allowed knowledge of polysaccharides to be placed beside that of proteins and nucleotides. |