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Wendy Offen

01904 328278
Email:  wendy.offen@york.ac.uk

Research Technician

Wendy Offen works in the group of Professor Gideon Davies, FRS. Her main interests are in the structural enzymology of diverse carbohydrate-active enzymes and biocatalysts. Wendy works on the O-GlcNAc modification, and related hexosaminidase enzymes, and on industrially-relevant amylases, cellulases and xyloglucanases. She is interested in enzymes with applications in lignocellulosic biomass degradation such as LPMOs and xylan esterases. She also has a long standing interest in mannosidase catalysis, and studies interactions of glycoside hydrolases with activity-based probes.

Selected Publications

• Ruijgrok, G., et al. (2025) Bespoke activity-based probes reveal that the Pseudomonas aeruginosa endoglycosidase, PslG, is an endo-β-glucanase. J Am Chem Soc. 147, 8578–8586. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c16806

• Su, Q., et al. (2024) Selective Labelling of GBA2 in Cells with Fluorescent β-D-Arabinofuranosyl Cyclitol Aziridines. Chem Sci. 15, 15212-15220 https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC06146A

• McGregor, N. G. S., et al. (2023) A multiplexing activity-based protein profiling platform for dissection of a native bacterial xyloglucan-degrading system. ACS Central Science. 9, 2306–2314. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.3c00831

• Kuo, C.-L., et al. (2023) The Development of a Broad-Spectrum Retaining β-Exo-Galactosidase Activity-Based Probe. Org BioMol Chem. 21, 7813-7820. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3OB01261A

• Borlandelli, V., et al. (2023) β-L-Arabinofurano-cyclitol Aziridines are Cysteine-directed Broad-spectrum Inhibitors and Activity-based Probes for Retaining β-L-arabinofuranosidases. ACS Chemical Biology. 8, 2564-2573. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.3c00558

• McGregor, N. G. S., et al. (2022) Synthesis of Broad-Specificity Activity-Based Probes for Exo-β-Mannosidases. Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. 20, 877 - 886. https://doi.org/1039/D1OB02287C

• Schröder, S. P., et al. (2021) The development of non-hydrolysable oligosaccharide activity-based inactivators for endoglycanases: a case study on a-1,6 mannanases. Chem Eur J. 27, 9519-9523. https://doi.org/1002/chem.202101255

• Rowland, R. J., et al. (2021) Design, Synthesis and Structural Analysis of Glucocerebrosidase Imaging Agents. Chem Eur J 27, 16377-16388. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202102359

• Yang, M., et al. (2018) Functional and informatics analysis enables glycosyltransferase activity prediction. Nature Chem. Biol. 14, 1109-1117. https://doi.org/1038/s41589-018-0154-9

• Schröder, S. P., et al. (2018) Gluco-1 H-imidazole: A New Class of Azole-Type β-Glucosidase Inhibitor. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140, 5045-5048. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b02399

• Roth, C., et al. (2017) Structural and functional insight into human O-GlcNAcase. Nature Chem. Biol. 13, 610. https://doi.org/1038/nchembio.2358