Project Summary / Abstract The goal of our laboratory is to interface challenging and thought-provoking organic chemistry with issues of plausible biological application. A primary goal for the next five years is to develop new molecular probes and leverage these molecules to advance our understanding of human disease. Critical to the role which the laboratory plays at Vanderbilt University, and within larger concerns of glycobiology, is problem selection. On the chemistry side, we identify problems of a complexity level conducive to new and significant learning experiences. At the level of biology, we select difficult problems that may be subject to accelerated advance if the necessary chemistry can be developed. Taken together, the overall vision for our program is to apply a human health driven approach to developing robust and reproducible reactions and synthesis strategies to interrogate clinically relevant diseases.