Precision medicine uses data-driven insights to reflect the heterogeneity of patients and improve cancer care by offering actionable oncology treatment options. Tumour tissue heterogeneity is the leading cause for inter-patient variation in treatment response. One of the largest sources of tissue heterogeneity arises from post-translational glycosylation of proteins and aberrant glycosylation is a hallmark of breast and other cancers. Yet, substantial gaps remain in our knowledge of cancer glycans. Glycomics (the comprehensive study of the glycome) offers the potential to provide the global glycosylation status of a patient and shed new light on tumour heterogeneity to guide precision medicine.

GlycoMAP aims to address the substantial knowledge gap in cancer tumour glycosylation data by developing an integrated glycomics workflow to produce patient-specific 'GlycoMaps'. By including GAGomics from intact GAGs for the first time, combined with other glycan analyses, will enable the generation of GlycoMaps from resistant and drug-sensitive patient-derived organoids (mini avatars of tumour tissue), defining residual tumour tissue following treatment that causes relapse and metastasis.