During the course of his graduate studies, Anthony developed the largest known collection of synthetic human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) which were used to fabricate a first-of-its-kind microarray for high-throughput screening; the results of which illustrated how immune and viral proteins interact with particular carbohydrate epitopes found in breastmilk (PNAS 2017).

After finishing his graduate studies, Dr. Prudden continued in the laboratory of Dr. Boons as a post-doctoral researcher where he devised a chemo-enzymatic strategy to assemble complex symmetric and asymmetric N-glycans. This carbohydrate class is important in a myriad of biological functions ranging from protein folding and cell signaling, to antibody activity and biomarker development. Due to the heterogeneous nature of these structures, determining how a specific N-glycan structure modulates a protein’s activity has remained a challenge. To address this problem, Anthony pioneered a synthetic methodology to access single structure N-glycans of exceptional purity. The results of this work have been published (Nature Chem 2018) and the technology developed resulted in the issuance of a patent.

Dr. Prudden has contributed to numerous academic collaborations, has worked as a consultant to a glyco-focused biotech company, and is listed as an inventor on several patents.