It is my great pleasure to invite you to attend the 12th Jenner Glycobiology and Medicine Symposium “Translational Glycobiology – From Bench to Bedside” that will take place in Dubrovnik, Croatia on May 6-9, 2017.

The Jenner glycobiology and medicine symposia were the first and main international multidisciplinary conferences set up to examine the relevance of glycobiology to immunology, medicine and clinical practice. The symposia, since 2001, have been organised by the Royal Society of Medicine with the aim to widen clinical participation and to actively promote and foster greater interaction and collaboration between glycobiologists and clinicians.

With glyco-diagnostics and glyco-stratification of patients becoming reality and glycoengineered drugs entering the market, this series of conferences is more attractive than ever. In the last few years over 40,000 individual glycomes have been published. The interest among clinicians is increasing steadily and new evidence about the importance of glycans in diseases and disease models is being generated on regular basis . Methods for sample preparation, high-resolution analysis and quantification of glycans and glycopeptides are constantly being improved, promising further advances in our understanding of the role of protein glycosylation in disease.

Glycome integrates our genetic background with past and present environmental factors, thus it offers a promise of more efficient patient stratification than genetic polymorphisms (that are set for a lifetime of an individual). Until recently, this was only an elusive promise, but newly generated data are converting this promise into a reality. The progress is still slow, but considering the complexity of the glycome and the limited number of laboratories that can perform high-throughput glycomic studies, this is not surprising. However, the technology is now available and the interest for glycomics among researchers performing clinical and epigenetic studies is increasing steadily, thus further progress leading to new and exciting discoveries is inevitable.

12th Jenner Glycobiology and Medicine Symposium meeting will provide an international forum for scientists and clinicians to disseminate the findings of current leading edge research in both novel and classic fields of glycobiology and glycomedicine. The conference venue will be the brand new Sheraton Dubrovnik Riviera Hotel just a few min drive from the old city of Dubrovnik. In addition to renowned invited speakers a number of talks will be selected from the submitted abstracts. I hope you will be able to join us in Dubrovnik and help make this conference both enlightening and pleasurable.