Tracey Gloster

Gloster studied biochemistry at University of Warwick, graduating in 2002[4] and then moved to University of York where she was awarded a PhD in chemistry in 2005 for research supervised by Gideon Davies.[2][5]

In her early career she was funded by the Wellcome Trust, initially with a Henry Wellcome post-doctoral fellowship held between 2008 and 2011 at Simon Fraser University, Canada, where she worked with David Vocadlo,[4][6] and then a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development fellowship in 2012 when she joined the University of St Andrews, Scotland. As of 2022 she holds the position of Reader.[7]

Her research is about all aspects of enzymes that deal with carbohydrates within eukaryotes.[7] Carbohydrates are made from a very wide range of sugar molecules that can be attached to each and other molecules in diverse ways. These glycosylations can have profound consequences for the roles and activities of the molecules and can result in disease if the cell does not process them correctly. Identifying the location and nature of glycosylations is technically challenging, in addition to the challenge of linking them to functions. Gloster has applied inhibitors to gain more understanding about exactly how they work, including describing a new class of glycosyltransferase inhibitors.[5] The techniques that Gloster uses includes ones based around cells, including molecular biology and cell cultures, as well as biophysical methods such as enzyme kinetics, X-ray crystallography and isothermal titration calorimetry.[8]