Sugars are the foundation of all life and play an irreplaceable role in a variety of cellular events. Glycopolymers with pendent sugar moieties

which are able to interact with lectin as multivalent ligand in a similar manner to natural glycoproteins

are relatively easy to synthesize and are attracting more attentions recently. Cell surface glycosylation is believed to be important in understanding and the treatment of cancer

and certain sugars have high affinity toward receptors or proteins on cancer cell surface. Herein reports especially those from our lab about the synthesis and application of glycopolymers with high affinity toward cancer cells are discussed

with special focus on the one-pot synthesis of glycopolymers and the application of glycopolymer-based materials as models to interact with protein/cells

in targeted cancer cell imaging/therapy and tumor cell capturing. It is demonstrated that efficient polymeric synthetic methods greatly simplify the fabrication of carbohydrate-based materials

and complex glycopolymer-based materials has a broad application prospects.