Tara Liyanage

I am a trained analytical chemist with broad background knowledge in chemistry and biochemistry. My expertise is in developing mass spectrometric methodologies to obtain structural information of biomolecules, lipids and carbohydrate to understand their biological functions. I am currently working on investigating ceramide composition gangliosides in human and bovine milk. Although, carbohydrates that occur in milk has been extensively studied, much less work has been done to determine structure of glycolipids. Like free glycans the glycolipids provide to protect the infant from infection while its immune system is still under development. Goal of this work is to generate the analytics required to study the structure- function relationship of gangliosides in infant development.

For my PhD I worked on designing experiments to study the fundamentals of in-Electrospray Hydrogen/Deuterium exchange (in-ESI HDX) with a goal of developing novel methodologies to study the 3D structure of glycans and glycoproteins. During this time I was able to develop fundamentals required to develop novel in-ESI methodologies. I also worked on designing electrospray source modifications for hydrogen/deuterium exchange experiments. Additionally I also gained experience in organic synthesis chemistry by fully synthesizing and characterizing novel organoboron heterocylic compounds. I have also gained working knowledge of operating glove box, carrying out organic synthesis in air-free atmospheres during this time (Schlenk techniques) ,IR and NMR techniques.