Chapter 10: Modern Methods for the Synthesis of Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are Nature's most diverse and abundant biopolymer, and have wide-ranging in vivo biological roles, including mediating cell–cell communication between both healthy and diseased cells and acting as a host ligand in the earliest stages of infection for a range of viruses and pathogenic bacteria. The rich biological function of carbohydrates, in addition to their inherent complexity, has drawn many chemists and chemical biologists to the field of carbohydrate synthesis. In this chapter we summarise many of their endeavours and new advances and concepts in this rapidly evolving field, which have helped to push the boundaries of synthetic possibility and delivered carbohydrates with greater stereocontrol, of longer lengths and in a faster, more practical manner than ever before.