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Nature Chemical Biology 3, 309–310 (1 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/nchembio0607-309

Sugars synthesized in a snap

Peng George Wang

Understanding the biological roles of polysaccharides has been a significant challenge because of several factors, including the heterogeneity of sugar substituents, the molecular redundancy of many sugars, and their structural diversity. Accordingly, one important part of saccharide research has been the chemical synthesis of carbohydrates to confirm presumed structures or to better understand the molecular interactions driving a biological process.