In his Nobel Prize Lecture on December 12, 1902, Emil Fischer noted that the carbohydrates are not only the first organic products formed in plants from the carbon dioxide in the air but in abundance, too, they surpass all substances that are current in the living world. The founding of the Division of Sugar Chemistry and Technology a century ago took into account all of the carbohydrates from the sweetener industries, cane and beet, corn starch hydrolyzate corn syrup, and some cellulose relating to the paper industries.  In this century of growth in carbohydrate chemistry, being celebrated here today, we mark criteria of certitude about the molecules we study that would have been unimaginable to Emil Fischer in defining their chemical reactivity and structural as well as molecular mechanics energies which permit them to be so essential to life processes, materials science, and medical processes. In my sixty years as a member of the ACS and a practicing carbohydrate chemist as well as a member of the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry, I have continually seen great changes in our knowledge of carbohydrate molecules and learned from my colleagues in the Division.  This has been a great exchange of information, mutually beneficial, spanning a range of modifications or  syntheses of glycosides, structure determination with instruments such as high resolution nmr., polysaccharide or oligosaccharide isolation  and purification using membrane techniques, or  gas and liquid chromatography with  mass spectral component confirmation.  Each successful step achieved has also promised an improved product or potential for healing.<br/>

One hundred years of basic carbohydrate science as growth in human experience: Personal applications to a spectrum of challenges

2019 Fall National Meeting

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