Publisher's Synopsis
The series of conferences on the synthesis of antibiotics has been well received by the scientific community. The first meeting in 1988 in Aussois, France (G. Lukacs, Chairman), the second in 1990 in Oiso, Japan (M. Ohno, Chairman) and the third meeting in 1992 in Kloster Banz, Germany (K. Krohn Chairman) attracted many specialists throughout the world. These meetings have provided a forum in which to discuss the chemical @ synthetic aspects of antibiotics and related compounds in great detail and to bring together researchers from academia and industry.;Many participants, but also colleagues who were unable to attend the last meeting, requested a printed version of the lectures. Consequently the speakers were asked to write a concise review on the topic of their lecture designed for a wider audience and not to submit just a copy of their talk. This book is the result of their efforts. The important groups of antibiotics such as P-lactams, macrolactones, enediynes, quinolones, cyclopentanoids, saccharides and pseudosaccharides, peptides and glycopeptides are represented. Special features are the presentations of new methodology applied to antibiotic synthesis (e.g., palladium-catalyzed vicinal hydroxyamination, directed metalation and cross-coupling reactions, a-amino aldehydes for cycloaddition and homologation reactions, cyclopropane and cyclobutane carboxaldehydes for ring extensions, and directed biosynthetic and enzymatic methods for the production of antibiotics). In addition, contributions to the chemistry of antiviral compounds are included, reflecting the pressing need to find effective treatments for HrV as well as other viral infections.;To achieve their goal in a timely manner, the editors provided the authors in advance with detailed instructions for the preparation of the manuscripts. This was particularly important for the electronic versions submitted on floppy disks. After submission, each manuscript was checked by an editor according to his expertise (antiviral compounds; H.M.; antibiotics, H.A.K.). The detailed editing and the final reformatting of the electronically submitted contributions was done by the chairman of the 3rd Symposium (K.K.). This task, necessary to achieve at a uniform style and layout throughout the book, required mastery of more dm ten different word processing and drawing programs on both the DOS and Macintosh platforms. The help of Marianne Nither, Mariola Zukowski and Horst Adam in this formidable work is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to @ Dr. Mager from VCH Publishers for his continued support of this new mode of publishing, and naturally, all of the authors for their co-operation and patience.