Springer Carbohydrates: Synthesis, Mechanisms, and Stereoelectronic Effects

All essential areas of basic synthetic carbohydrate chemistry are covered and appropriately described. In addition, this book explains the basic reaction mechanisms while taking into account modern concepts such as stereoelectronic principles. Review From the reviews:“This book represents a compendium of methods and principles used in the field of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry. Useful information concerning basic aspects of the subject, such as nomenclature, conformational analysis, and anomeric effects, is easily available to the reader and is well presented … . The book can still serve as a good source of literature references from the early days of carbohydrate chemistry … .” (Alexei V. Demchenko, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 132 (45), 2010) Review In reading "Carbohydrates: Synthesis, Mechanism and Stereochemical Effects," I was impressed by its value. It really takes a reader from a non-initiated state and provides a pathway to a position of reasonable familiarity and comprehension of the main issues with which carbohydrate chemists are concerned. It does so by providing an historic picture of the development of the subject and it charts the intellectual progression, building upon the organic chemistry. In other words, it provides a chemical perspective, in treating the phenomenology of carbohydrate and glycoconjugates. It integrates these phenomena under the umbrella of the bedrock of organic chemistry. My transition to an aficionado of carbohydrate chemistry would have much been smoother had a book of this quality been available in the mid-1980s. It really is an excellent and scholarly effort based on the traditions and logic of organic chemistry. I salute the author for his efforts and accomplishments. Samuel Danishefsky Sloan-Kettering Institute and Columbia University From the Back Cover Carbohydrates: Synthesis, Mechanisms, and Stereoelectronic Effects explains the conformational, electrostatic, and stereoelectronic factors that control the chemical and biochemical behavior of carbohydrates in living cells. Topics include the anomeric effect, the chemistry of the glycosidic bond, isomerization of free carbohydrates in aqueous solutions, relative reactivity of hydroxyl groups in carbohydrate molecules, and the addition of nucleophiles to glycopyranosiduloses. Focus then shifts to the synthesis of glycosidic bonds and oligosaccharides, the synthesis of anhydro and amino sugars, branched chain sugars and the protection of hydroxyl groups in monosaccharides. The last three chapters are devoted to areas often overlooked in carbohydrate chemistry textbooks: carbohydrate based antibiotics, synthesis of polychiral natural products from carbohydrates, and the chemistry of higher-carbon sugars.