100 unit sugar breaks record for longest synthetic carbohydrate
By 
Katrina Krämer2020-05-14T08:30:00
Longest linear polysaccharide was made in a 201-step automated synthesis that took only eight days
The longest ever synthetic carbohydrate, a sugar with 100 monosaccharide units strung in a linear chain, has been made by chemists in Germany.1 The team used an automated synthesiser for 201 of the 203 steps. The 100-mer beats the previous record holder, a 92-mer created by regular convergent total synthesis in 2017.2