The last two decades have witnessed the proliferation of a rather vast literature concerning the synthesis and biological properties of nucleoside analogues. These interesting compounds can be roughly subdivided into two major groups--those containing modified heterocyclic bases, and those in which the sugar moiety has been altered and is no longer ribose or 2-deoxyribose as found in nucleic acids. Base analogues have in general been prepared either via N-glycosidation of suitably modified heterocycles or by structural transformations of the base moiety in existing nucleosides. Both of these approaches will be considered in detail during this meeting by my colleagues Drs. VorbrUggen, Robins and Townsend. In a related way, nucleosides containing modified carbohydrate moieties have frequently been prepared via glycosidation of an appropriate purine or pyrimidine base with a suitable derivative of the desired sugar. Alternatively, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the development of specific chemical transformations suitable for introducing the desired modifications into the sugar moiety of intact nucleosides. It is this latter approach that has particularly fascinated the group in our laboratory and that I wish to review for you today. The subject is, however, a rather vast one, encompassing an enormous number of references, and accordingly I must, of necessity, be somewhat selective in what I specifically mention. Accordingly, I have decided to restrict my attentions to analogues of pentofuranosyl nucleosides and to make almost no mention of hexose derivatives tContribution No. 527 from the Institute