Rate My Professor Zach Armstrong

Armstrong's research interests center on biocatalysts that promote the synthesis and degradation of carbohydrates, spanning chemistry and biology. His work emphasizes structural biology of carbohydrate-modifying enzymes, development of tools such as activity-based probes for profiling these enzymes, and their application in discovering new therapeutics targeting disease states and host-pathogen interactions. With 29 publications, over 900 citations, and an h-index of 15, notable contributions include “Cryo-EM structures of human fucosidase FucA1 reveal insight into substrate recognition and catalysis” (Structure, 2022), “Mechanism-based heparanase inhibitors reduce cancer metastasis in vivo” (PNAS, 2022), “Manno-epi-cyclophellitols Enable Activity-Based Protein Profiling of Human α-Mannosidases and Discovery of New Golgi Mannosidase II Inhibitors” (JACS, 2020), “Structure and function of Bs164 β-mannosidase from Bacteroides salyersiae” (JBC, 2020), and “Metagenomics Reveals Functional Specialization and Novel Polysaccharide Utilization Loci in the Castor canadensis Fecal Microbiome” (ISME Journal, 2018). He received the NWO Veni Fellowship in 2022 (280,000 euros over three years) for designing molecules to inhibit viral sugar modifications as a new class of antivirals, and in 2025, Open Competition Science-M funding for tracking mucus-munching bacteria. Additional early-career honors include the NSERC CREATE Fellowship and Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation Excellence Award. His contributions advance chemical biology, biocatalysis, functional metagenomics, and therapeutic development against glycan-related pathologies.