New approaches to the chemical synthesis of bioactive oligosaccharides

The past year has seen some major advances in the area of carbohydrate synthesis using chemical methods. Progress in all areas of synthetic methodology, 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 defined carbohydrate structures for biochemical, biophysical and biological studies has drawn closer by the introduction of two approaches towards synthesis automation. A one-pot glycosylation strategy utilized computer-assisted synthesis planning and the first solid-phase automated synthesizer was introduced very recently.