Volumes five and six of Bioorganic Marine Chemistry differ from their predecessors in two respects - they deal exclusively with laboratory synthesis of marine natural products and they represent the effort of a single author and his associates. The rationale for these departures is readily perceived. For several decades organic synthesis has without doubt been the most spectacular branch of organic chemistry. While the late R.B. Woodward's dictum - organic compounds can undergo only four basic reactions: they can gain electrons; they can lose electrons; they can be transformed with acid or with base - is still true, the wealth and variety of available reagents which will accomplish chemical transformations has reached staggering proportions. Little wonder then, that synthetic methodology has achieved a high degree of predictability and total synthesis of natural products has been successfully directed toward ever more challenging targets. As for the second point, that of single authorship, multiple authorship would invariably have led to gaps and overlaps, thus making it difficult to assemble and assess recent research in a systematic and comprehens ive fashion.

Marine natural products are characterized by high chemical diversity, biochemical specificity, and other molecular properties that make them favorable as lead structures for drug discovery. In this field, one of the main problems is often the reduced natural availability of isolated substances, which can complicate both the structural characterization and possible future developments. For these reasons, the study of bioactive marine metabolites should rely on the development of chemical synthesis and synthetic strategies aimed at the preparation of pure compounds and analogs both for structural confirmation and/or for the large-scale preparation necessary for future applications. Moreover, natural products can be a crucial starting point for the preparation of molecules structurally inspired by the latter, opening the path to new classes of biologically active compounds with pharmacological potential. This book collects original research articles regarding synthetic strategies for secondary marine metabolites and/or analogs that favor applications of these molecules and/or solve structural challenges common in the field of natural substances.

Volumes five and six of Bioorganic Marine Chemistry differ from their predecessors in two respects - they deal exclusively with laboratory synthesis of marine natural products and they represent the effort of a single author and his associates. The rationale for these departures is readily perceived. For several decades organic synthesis has without doubt been the most spectacular branch of organic chemistry. While the late R.B. Woodward's dictum - organic compounds can undergo only four basic reactions: they can gain electrons; they can lose electrons; they can be transformed with acid or with base - is still true, the wealth and variety of available reagents which will accomplish chemical transformations has reached staggering proportions. Little wonder then, that synthetic methodology has achieved a high degree of predictability and total synthesis of natural products has been successfully directed toward ever more challenging targets. As for the second point, that of single authorship, multiple authorship would invariably have led to gaps and overlaps, thus making it difficult to assemble and assess recent research in a systematic and comprehens ive fashion.

Volumes five and six of Bioorganic Marine Chemistry differ from their predecessors in two respects - they deal exclusively with labor atory synthesis of marine natural products and they represent the effort of a single author and his associates. The rationale for these departures is readily perceived. For several decades organic synthesis has without doubt been the most spectacular branch of organic chemistry. While the late R.B. Woodward's dictum - organic compounds can undergo only four basic reactions: they can gain electrons; they can lose electrons; they can be transformed with acid or with base - is still true, the wealth and variety of available reagents which will accomplish chemical transformations has reached staggering proportions. Little wonder then, that synthetic methodology has achieved a high degree of predictability and total synthesis of natural products has been successfully directed toward ever more challenging targets. As for the second point, that of single authorship, multiple authorship would invariably have led to gaps and overlaps, thus making it difficult to assemble and assess recent research in a systematic and comprehens ive fashion.

Marine Natural Products: Chemical and Biological Perspectives, Volume II, reviews the state of knowledge in the chemistry and biology of marine natural products. It attempts to bring together timely and critical reviews that are representative of major current researches and that, hopefully, will also foreshadow future trends. The first three chapters of this volume deal with marine carotenoids, steroids, and diterpenoids. This is followed by a chapter that examines a single phylum, the Coelenterata, and its metabolites. The Coelenterata is an almost exclusively marine phylum of some 9000 described living species. Research predicts that the coelenterates will yield a rich harvest of organic metabolites. The final chapter, which focuses on 13C NMR spectroscopy for structural elucidation, reveals the power of this instrumental method especially when applied to the difficult problems of polyhalogenated marine metabolites.