In her talk about sugar and cancer, Stanford Chemistry Professor Carolyn Bertozzi tells us why the sugar coating on our cells is crucial to our health and wellbeing. Unlike the sugar coating on a peanut M&M, she explains, human cells are covered with complex sugars Bertozzi shows us are, “like foliage swaying in the breeze.” The language these sugars are speaking can tell us everything from what blood type we are to whether we have cancer.

Carolyn Bertozzi is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical & Systems Biology and Radiology (by courtesy) at Stanford, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard and her doctorate at UC Berkeley. After postdoctoral work at UCSF and a professorship at UC Berkeley, she joined the faculty at Stanford coincident with the launch of Stanford ChEMH.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx