Abstract :

My long journey in search of education and research in the realms of the chemistry of carbohydrates, such as sucrose and hyaluronic acid, took me through many parts of the world such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, England, Canada, Norway, again England, and Italy. A brief description of the same is furnished hereunder. The two principal objectives of our research on carbohydrates were: (a) to understand the mechanism towards various chemical and enzymatic reactions and (b) to explore the commercial potential of the resulting carbohydrate derivatives. In this review, emphasis will mainly be placed on the second objective; and the inventions that followed as a result of the basic chemical and biochemical research on carbohydrates leading to the products of commercial significance, such as Sucralose® (Splenda®), a high-intensity sweetener.