The importance of carbohydrates in several biological processes is now well established. Specific cell-cell recognition, cell-substratum attachment, cell-virus interactions and modulations of growth factor receptors involve oligosaccharide-protein interactions. Also, oligosaccharide-nucleic acid interactions are being reported to play important role in several biological processes. Thus, the knowledge of the precise molecular structure of the oligosaccharide and its interacting partner is of great importance for designing inhibitors or drugs. Recently a number of tools have been developed and used to study the conformation of carbohydrates and their interactions with proteins. Conformational analysis by theoretical techniques are making important contributions and have come to be recognized as one of the important tools of investigations. Dr. V.S.R. Rao, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, and currently a Visiting scientist in our laboratory, is a specialist in the field of conformational analysis of carbohydrate structures. He has developed precise theoretical methods to study conformation of carbohydrates and their modes of binding to proteins. These theoretical studies have to a large extent helped to fill up the void created by the lack of sufficient x-ray diffraction and NMR data on carbohydrates compared to nucleic acids and proteins. Currently there is no suitable book available that introduces the research scientists and beginners in this field of research to the stereochemistry of sugars, the principals and methods of conformational analysis of carbohydrates and reviews the latest advances in this area of research. Thus, a book that will deal with these topics is highly desirable. Harwood academic publishers, Netherlands, requested Dr. V.S.R.Rao to write a book on the principals of conformational analysis of carbohydrates. Since there is a great need for a book which will introduce research scientists to the conformational aspects of the carbohydrates by computer modeling Dr.V.S.R. Rao with Dr. P.K. Qasba, Dr. P. V. Balaji, who was a Visiting Fellow in our laboratory and is now Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and with Dr. R. Chandrasekharan from Purdue University have been writing this book since January 1995. As of today most of the chapters have been written and is at a final stage of completion.
