Carbohydrates are renewable resources and useful raw materials for many classes of compounds, from medicines to advanced materials. Our chemistry utilizing renewable materials centers on two main areas: the conversion of carbohydrates into chiral building blocks and complex natural products, and the preparation of carbohydrate derived self-assembling systems. In this seminar, the first part will cover the conversion of  carbohydrates into chiral small molecules such as oxazolidinone based antibacterial agents and aeruginosin based serine protease inhibitors, the second part will cover the synthesis and characterization of sugar derived new materials-low molecular weight hydrogelators.