Lianne Willems

Dr. Lianne Willems is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York. Her research focuses on the chemical biology of carbohydrates and carbohydrate-processing enzymes, with a particular interest in developing tools to study O-glycosylation and its role in diseases like muscular dystrophies. She holds an ERC Starting Grant for her work on ribitol-phosphate-based chemical tools.

Education: PhD (2014) from Leiden University, followed by postdoctoral research at Simon Fraser University (Canada), where she received a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Rubicon Fellowship. Her research spans organic chemistry, biochemistry, and cell biology to understand glycobiological processes.

Research Interests: Development of chemical probes for enzyme activity, synthesis of glycoconjugates, O-glycosylated proteome characterization, and mechanistic studies of glycosyltransferases. Her work integrates bioorthogonal chemistry and activity-based protein profiling to uncover cellular mechanisms.

Key Awards: ERC Starting Grant (2020–2025), Banting Fellowship (Canada), Rubicon Fellowship (NWO). Current projects include the RibiTool initiative exploring ribitol-phosphate biology.

Grants and Collaborations: Leads the ERC-funded RibiTool project and collaborates internationally on glycobiology and enzymology. Engages in educational innovation, including flipped classroom approaches in chemistry teaching.

Labs/Teams: Heads a research group focused on chemical biology and glycobiology within the Department of Chemistry at York.