Ten Feizi

Ten Feizi FMedSci FRS (born in 1937^[1]) is a Turkish Cypriot/British molecular biologist who is Professor and Director of the Glycosciences Laboratory at Imperial College London. Her research considers the structure and function of glycans. She was awarded the Society for Glycobiology Rosalind Kornfeld award in 2014. She was also awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021.

Ten Feizi FMedSci FRS
Born	1937 (age 85–86)^[1] Nicosia, British Cyprus^[1]
Alma mater	University College London Royal Free Medical School
Scientific career
Institutions	Imperial College London Columbia University Rockefeller University Hammersmith Hospital
Thesis	Cold agglutinins and mycoplasma pneumoniae (1969)

Early life and education

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1937 to a Turkish Cypriot family,^[1] Feizi completed her primary and secondary education in Cyprus before moving to London to continue her studies.^[2] She studied medicine at the Royal Free Medical School, and graduated with distinction in 1961.^[3] After qualifying as a doctor, Feizi worked as a registrar in surgery and haematology at the Hammersmith Hospital.^[4] During her placement at the Hammersmith, Feizi became interested in atypical pneumonia.^[5] Almost one third of patients who suffer from atypical pneumonia develop cold agglutinins in their blood, which are misdirected antibodies that bind to red blood cells.^[5] She demonstrated that mycoplasma can stimulate the production of auto-antibodies on binding to red blood cells.^[5] She earned her MD degree at University College London, where she researched mycoplasma pneumoniae.^[6] As an early career researcher, Feizi joined the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons as an College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia Fellow, where she worked with Elvin A. Kabat on glycans.^[5] She was later appointed a research fellow at Rockefeller University, where she extracted carbohydrates in the laboratory of Richard Krause.^[4]

Research and career

In 1973 Feizi joined the Medical Research Council Clinical Research Centre, where she was appointed Head of the Glycoconjugates Section. She eventually established the Imperial College London Glycosciences Laboratory.^[4] She was made a Professor at Imperial College London in 1994.^[4]

Her early research considered cold agglutinins, sensitive, misdirected antibodies that build up following mycoplasma pneumoniae. The antigen on red blood cells that is bound by these cold agglutinins is known as the I antigen.^[5] Feizi worked with Sen-itiroh Hakomori to understand this antigen, which she showed was expressed on the carbohydrate backbone.^[7] Feizi considered the relationship between the I antigen and mycoplasma, and showed that a sialic-capped form of poly-N-acetyllactosamine acts as a mycoplasma receptor.^[7] This directs I antigens to the glycan receptor. She also studied the structures of the Ii antigen system; and established that they existed as both branched and linear poly-N-acetyllactosamine chains.^[7] Her research group were the first to sequence the envelope glycoprotein GP120 and elucidate their interactions with the mannose-specific macrophage endocytosis receptor.^[8][9]

Feizi showed that during both cellular differentiation and the transformation of normal cells to tumorous cells, anti-li blood group antibodies could be used to track changes in glycosylation.^[7][10] She studied the ability of animal lectins to bind to oligosaccharides.^[7] Her interest in both the structure and recognition of glycans led her to develop a new glycan screening protocol. Feizi created the neoglycolipid (NGL)-based oligosaccharide microarray system, which allowed her to explore the whole spectrum of glycans, specific cells and glycoproteins.^[7][11][12] In 2002 her system was the first to encompass entire glycomes.^[3] Her glycoarray system, which is supported by the Wellcome Trust, is one of the world's most diverse, which allows better understanding of host–pathogen interactions and the interactions between glycans and proteins in disease processes.^[5][3][13] The system was used to assign the host-cell receptors in SV40 and Influenza A virus subtype H1N1.^[14][15]

Awards

• 1994 American Society for Clinical Pathology Outstanding Research Award^[16]
• 2014 Society for Glycobiology Rosalind Kornfeld Lifetime Achievement Award^[7][5]
• 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry Carbohydrate Group Haworth Memorial Lectureship^[17]

She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists.^{[citation needed]} In May 2021 she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.^[18]

Selected publications

• Feizi, Ten (1985). "Demonstration by monoclonal antibodies that carbohydrate structures of glycoproteins and glycolipids are onco-developmental antigens". Nature. 314 (6006): 53–57. Bibcode:1985Natur.314...53F. doi:10.1038/314053a0. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 2579340. S2CID 4257789.
• Fukui, Shigeyuki; Feizi, Ten; Galustian, Christine; Lawson, Alexander M.; Chai, Wengang (3 September 2002). "Oligosaccharide microarrays for high-throughput detection and specificity assignments of carbohydrate-protein interactions". Nature Biotechnology. 20 (10): 1011–1017. doi:10.1038/nbt735. ISSN 1087-0156. PMID 12219077. S2CID 19655076.
• Stamatatos, Leo; Sather, Noah (18 November 2011). "Faculty of 1000 evaluation for A potent and broad neutralizing antibody recognizes and penetrates the HIV glycan shield". doi:10.3410/f.13371099.14741243. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

References

1. Pioneering Turkish Cypriot scientist awarded prestigious fellowship of the Royal Society, T-Vine, 2021, retrieved 19 May 2021, Lefkoşa-born Professor Feizi... Born in 1937, Ten Feizi completed her primary and secondary schooling in Cyprus before moving to London to continue her studies.
2. Kıbrıslı Türk bilim insanı Prof.Dr. Ten Feizi'ye "Fellow of Royal Society" unvanı, Kıbrıs Genç TV, 2021, retrieved 19 May 2021
3. "Home - Professor Ten Feizi". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
4. Ten Feizi. OCLC 4779868487.
5. "Professor Ten Feizi wins Society for Glycobiology lifetime achievement award | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
6. Feizi, Ten (1969). Cold agglutinins and mycoplasma pneumoniae (Thesis). OCLC 926243918.
7. "Dr. Ten Feizi wins 2014 Rosalind Kornfeld Award". Society for Glycobiology. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
8. Mizuochi, T.; Spellman, M. W.; Larkin, M.; Solomon, J.; Basa, L. J.; Feizi, T. (1 September 1988). "Carbohydrate structures of the human-immunodeficiency-virus (HIV) recombinant envelope glycoprotein gp120 produced in Chinese-hamster ovary cells". The Biochemical Journal. 254 (2): 599–603. doi:10.1042/bj2540599. ISSN 0264-6021. PMC 1135120. PMID 2845957.
9. Larkin, M.; Childs, R. A.; Matthews, T. J.; Thiel, S.; Mizuochi, T.; Lawson, A. M.; Savill, J. S.; Haslett, C.; Diaz, R.; Feizi, T. (December 1989). "Oligosaccharide-mediated interactions of the envelope glycoprotein gp120 of HIV-1 that are independent of CD4 recognition". AIDS. 3 (12): 793–798. doi:10.1097/00002030-198912000-00003. ISSN 0269-9370. PMID 2561054. S2CID 35223037.
10. Feizi, Ten (1985). "Demonstration by monoclonal antibodies that carbohydrate structures of glycoproteins and glycolipids are onco-developmental antigens". Nature. 314 (6006): 53–57. Bibcode:1985Natur.314...53F. doi:10.1038/314053a0. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 2579340. S2CID 4257789.
11. "Carbohydrate microarrays". Imperial College London. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
12. "Carbohydrate Microarray Facility". Imperial College London. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
13. "Current composition of NGL-based microarrays". Glyosciences Laboratory. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
14. Childs, Robert A.; Palma, Angelina S.; Wharton, Steve; Matrosovich, Tatyana; Liu, Yan; Chai, Wengang; Campanero-Rhodes, Maria A.; Zhang, Yibing; Eickmann, Markus; Kiso, Makoto; Hay, Alan (2009). "Receptor-binding specificity of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 virus determined by carbohydrate microarray". Nature Biotechnology. 27 (9): 797–799. doi:10.1038/nbt0909-797. ISSN 1087-0156. PMC 3771066. PMID 19741625.
15. "Wang - SRI International". Division of Cancer Prevention. 20 December 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
16. Dell, Anne (1 March 1995). "Congrajulations to:Dr Ten Feizi who is the 1994 recipient of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists Outstanding Research Award Honouring Philip Levine". Glycobiology. 5 (2): 153. doi:10.1093/glycob/5.2.153. ISSN 0959-6658.
17. "2020 Haworth Memorial Lectureship". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
18. "Royal Society elects outstanding new Fellows and Foreign Members". The Royal Society. 6 May 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2021.