Bogers Total Synthesis of the Vancomycin Aglycon

In 1999, a third total synthesis of the vancomycin aglycon (13) was achieved by Professor Dale Boger and his group at The Scripps Research Institute based on a unique design for determining the order of macrocycle construetion relative to those already presented 

Although this total synthesis concludes our presentation of this intriguing natural product, the final chapter of its exploration is certainly far from written. Many new synthetic tools and strategies are still needed to provide more efficient solutions to the vancomycin architecture, and a wealth of fundamental knowledge in the area of chemical biology remains to be discovered. Hopefully, studies aimed in this latter direction will not only reveal new insight into 

Sheehan, The Enchanted Ring The Untold Story of Penicillin, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1982, p. 224 b) S. Selwyn, R.W. Lacey, M. Bakhtiar, The Beta-Lactam Antibiotics Penicillins and Cephalosporins in Perspective, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1980, p. 364. 

For a general review on vancomycin, see K. C. Nico-laou, C. N. C. Boddy, S. Brase, N. Winssinger, Angew. Chem. 1999, 111, 2230 Angew. Chenu Int. Ed. 1999, 38, 2096 and references cited therein. Of additional interest, we suggest the following K. C. Nicolaou, C.N.C. Boddy, Sci. Am. 2001, 284, 46. 

For a general review on the formation of peptide bonds, see G. Benz in Comprehensive Organic Synthesis, Vol. 6 (Eds. B.M. Trost, I. Fleming), Perga-mon, Oxford, 1991, pp. 381-417. 

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