Dr. Alison Wendlandt, PhD

Glycosylation reactions are essential for the synthesis of glycans, but are often poorly diastereoselective. Here we propose “anomeric editing,” a strategy for the selective stereochemical revision of the glycosidic bond via sequential, stereoconvergent H atom abstraction and re-delivery. Our approach decouples bond formation and selectivity-determining steps, enabling unselective glycosylation reactions to be “upgraded” to a single diastereomer, and for the stereoinversion of diastereomerically pure glycosides to the opposite anomer. The tools described in this proposal will fundamentally alter how selective glycosidic linkages are forged, with broad-reaching implications in drug design, biomass utilization, and glycoscience.