Why should an organic chemist study sweet taste

The interest for sweeteners started well before the systematic study of sweet taste. Nevertheless, it was the hypothesis of the existence of a specific chemoreception mechanism that stimulated org. chemists to consider this area a fertile field for basic research and applications. Org. chem. has given a large contribute to the elucidation of the sweet taste mechanism and to the discovery of new active compds. The synthesis of new natural and artificial ligands with an appropriate control of stereochem. and conformational properties; the study of physico-chem. properties in order to optimize chem. stability and soly.;. The calcns. of mol. descriptors to be used in structure-activity relationships and to develop new models of ligand-receptor interactions; these are only some of the many aspects that an org. chemist could develop in studying sweet taste and sweeteners. The lecture will be a survey on the experience of our research group in various aspects of org. chem. applied to the study of sweet taste.