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Simon Allard (often cited as Simon T.M. Allard) is a Madison College microbiology professor. His early research at The University of St Andrews and the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on carbohydrate processing in pathogenic bacteria.

Early life and education
Allard was born in 1965 in Pontypool, Wales. He received his B.Sc. from King’s College, London in 1984, his M.Sc. from Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in 1998 and 2001, respectively.

Career
Most of his research career has been spent studying the unusual sugar L-rhamnose, and the associated enzymes involved in its production. This included early postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he helped characterize the structure and mechanism of the enzyme RmlB, a DTDP-glucose 4,6-dehydratase along with noted enzymologist W. Wallace Cleland.  ref>

Scientific contributions
The reemergence of the ‘white plague’ (tuberculosis) over the past 30 years has led to many researchers looking for ways to combat the causative organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One hope is the use of protein x-ray crystallography to determine the structures of enzymes unique to M. tuberculosis with the intention of using them as possible drug targets. Allard is best known for helping study and characterize the enzymes involved in the production of L-Rhamnose, a sugar not found in humans but necessary for a fully functioning mycobacterial cell wall. ref> The importance of this work centers around the fact that the mycobacterial cell wall consists of a mycolic acid layer tethered to peptidoglycan via the polysaccharide arabinogalactan. Arbinogalactan is attached to peptidoglycan via α-l-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→3)-α-d-N-acetyglucosaminosyl-1-phosphate. This structural arrangement strongly suggests that rhamnosyl residues are essential for the growth and viability of mycobacteria.  ref> The lack of new drugs to combat the many resistant strains of M. tuberculosis, apart from the recently Food and Drug Administration approved Bedaquiline, illustrates the need to find unique weaknesses in this organism.