For the 6th course, Dani and LC serve up a delicious discussion with Steve Silverman (@asymtmm on Twitter) from the #MerckChemistry Kenilworth NJ Discovery Process Chemistry group. Steve tells us about an industrial-academic collaboration he's leading with Professor Rob Britton's laboratory at Simon Fraser University (@BrittonLab on Twitter) where they discovered a short de novo route to nucleoside analogs. We discuss why nucleoside analogues are so important to pharmaceutical development and why, despite decades of research, they still pose a significant synthetic challenge for chemists. We also learn what inspired this collaboration (the real story) and get to hear from Rob himself about his motivations in joining forces on this project! Read the paper we discussed today here: A short de novo synthesis of nucleoside analogs Diversity-oriented synthesis of glycomimetics Follow the Pharm to Table podcast on Twitter - @PharmtoTablePod Visit our website at https://anchor.fm/pharm-to-table