New approaches to the chemical synthesis of bioactive oligosaccharides

The past year has seen some major advances in the area of carbohydrate synt hesis using chemical methods. Progress in all areas of synthetic methodolog y, including new protecting groups and coupling methods, has been reported. A number of complex carbohydrate structures have been prepared using known , as well as new, methods. The goal to allow nonspecialists access to defin ed carbohydrate structures for biochemical, biophysical and biological stud ies has drawn closer by the introduction of two approaches towards synthesi s automation. A one-pot glycosylation strategy utilized computer-assisted s ynthesis planning and the first solid-phase automated synthesizer was intro duced very recently.