Synthetic peptides incorporating analogues of phosphoserine are valuable tools for the study of protein kinases and phosphatases. In addition, derivatives of naturally occurring peptides incorporating phosphate groups may have interesting biological properties. Herein we describe a new Fmoc/t-Bu solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) strategy for the convenient generation of phosphoserine-based peptides. A proof-of-concept synthesis that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach is presented.Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation reactions are reversible processes, catalysed by kinases and phosphatases respectively, which play a key role in the regulation of cell function, growth and homeostasis. 1-3 Many diseases, including cancer, result from perturbations in the activity, or level of expression, of these enzymes. 4 Consequently the study of how nature orchestrates these opposing processes is a subject of considerable interest. 1,3 Synthetic peptides incorporating phosphorylated amino acid residues and their analogues (so-called phosphopeptides) have proven to be valuable tools for such investigations. 1,5-7 Furthermore derivatives of naturally occurring peptides incorporating phosphorylated amino acid residues (including serines) may have other interesting, potentially useful, biological properties. 8In most cells, a large proportion of total protein phosphorylation occurs on serine residues; as such, there has been significant effort directed towards the development of methods for the incorporation of phosphoserine-based residues into artificial peptide chains. 3,9 In this context, the 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl/tert-butyl (Fmoc/t-Bu) solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) strategy has proven to be especially valuable. 3,5,6,9 However, there are challenges associated with phosphopeptide synthesis using Fmoc/t-Bu SPPS and improvements in speed and efficiency as well as the complexity and diversity of the resulting phosphopeptides are desirable. 3 Towards this end we report here the development of a novel Fmoc/t-Bu SPPS strategy suitable for the efficient generation of structurally diverse phosphoserine-based peptides. As a proof-ofconcept this approach was applied to the synthesis of 1, a phosphorylated derivative of auto-inducing peptide III (AIP-III), a naturally occurring molecule involved in the regulation of quorum sensing in the Gram positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (Figure 1). 10 Non-natural analogues of AIPs hold significant value as chemical probes for studies on this intercellular signaling process and the delineation of structure-activity relationships may allow the rational development of antagonists which could potentially be used in a therapeutic context. 10a Figure 1 Structure of AIP-III and the phosphoserine-based derivative 1