Heather is a postdoctoral researcher in the Loebel lab. She is currently studying extracellular glycoproteins using Loebel's nascent matrix labeling technique. Glycans are polymers made up of sugar molecules. They are not encoded by the genome, but instead, are regulated by networks of enzymes and are altered based on environmental cues. More than half of the mammalian proteome is glycosylated. Likewise, glycoproteins are altered in many disease contexts (infection, neurodegeneration, cancer) and are frequently used as biomarkers or therapeutic targets. By testing how factors like hydrogel stiffness and osmolarity affect the glyco-proteome over time, she hopes to gain insight on the extent of glycoproteome tunability in response to mechanical cues and its effect on cell behavior.